


The White Album

by JustGettingBy



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Music, Musician Jaskier | Dandelion, Original Character(s), Period-Typical Homophobia, Recreational Drug Use, Reincarnation, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Urban Fantasy, and they were ROOMMATES, grad student Geralt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustGettingBy/pseuds/JustGettingBy
Summary: Jaskier has always known his destiny was on the coast. He goes to California to meet it and everything else promised on the golden coast—the greatest music in history, freedom, and a life of his own.Jaskier just didn't anticipate the man-shaped bump in the road.In front of Jaskier a man—naked from the waist up—stands in front of a set of drawers, folding a shirt.The man stills. He turns his head to Jaskier. A muscle in his jaw twitches. His handsome features twist into a look of anger. “Get out.” His eyebrows knit together and crease lines on his forehead. His dark eyes narrow and, for a fraction of a second, Jaskier swears they glow.“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier says and averts his eyes. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I thought this was the bathroom.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 86
Kudos: 219





	1. California Dreamin'

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So no one asked for this 1960s/urban fantasy/reincarnation au.  
> But what other way combines cool music, monster hunting, and Geralt and Jaskier finally getting to the coast? 
> 
> The titles of the chapters are songs, and the title of the fic is obviously from the Beatles BUT I also wanted to allude to Joan Didion's collection of essays about California in the late 60s with the same title. Brilliant book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is a song by The Mamas & The Papas

**August 27th, 1965**

Jaskier watches the hazy skyline of LA drift into view beyond the wing of the plane. It looks like a dream: pink and orange sunset beams melt over the Pacific. He bounces his finger on the armrest of his seat, closes his eyes, and imagines how the sun will feel on his face. 

He can’t fucking wait. 

When Jaskier was fifteen, he swore he’d leave New York. The idea brewed in his head long before he consciously made the vow to leave. From the time he was young, he knew he didn’t belong. The metal skyscrapers and asphalt and concrete and flashing lights all wound into a vice that suffocated him. In his dreams, he sees rolling open fields and dense forest. Sometimes, when he woke in his shoe-box bedroom in his parent’s 5th ave apartment, he had to stay under the covers while he came back to himself. The scent of fresh earth and campfire lingered in his nose. Once, when he was eight, he asked his father to go camping upstate. His father laughed and never gave Jaskier a real answer, so Jaskier let the idea go—with his Father, at least. He always imagined how freeing it would be to go camping and wander through the woods and sleep under the stars. 

But his underlying revulsion of New York reached its tipping point in Biology class when he was fifteen. He blankly stared at Mr. Evans while he scribbled the anatomy of the heart on the chalkboard. Mr. Evan’s bland voice rattled in his ears. He was saying something about the aorta. Next to Jaskier, Sally Preston flicked her ponytail behind her back and pretended to take notes (she was really drawing little hearts around her notebook). Behind him, Bobby and Daniel were not-so-quietly whispering about whether or not the football game on Friday night would be cancelled on account of the dump of snow they’d gotten, despite the fact it was only the end of October. 

_ That’s it,  _ he thought as he stared at the pale sky through the window.  _ I can’t stay here.  _

Naturally, his parents hated his decision.

“There’s plenty of great schools out here,” his mother said to him one afternoon in February. She set the kettle on the stove and crossed her arms over her chest. Her face pinched as if she’d just smelled something foul, but not a curl of her dark hair was out of place. 

Jaskier sighed and looked out the balcony. From their apartment, Jaskier could see the greenery of Central Park breaking up the lines of the city. It was one of the only things about New York he didn’t hate. 

“Or at least stay out East,” his mother continued, unbothered by his apparent lack of response. “You won’t be in the city, if you hate it so much—which is ridiculous, by the way—but you won’t be more than an hour away from us.”

His father nodded his head slowly in agreement with his mother. “Of course, Julian,” he started. 

Jaskier’s shoulders rounded. He hated his real name. He hated pretentious drawl in his father’s voice. And yes, he hated the city. He knew New York was the dream for most people, but for him it was clouded by stuffy parents and prep schools and rich snobs. 

His father cleared his throat and stared pointedly at Jaskier. 

“Yes?” 

“Of course, if you don’t want to go school, know that there’s always an open spot for you at my office,” his father finished. “Starting earning a living. Set yourself up for your life.”

Jaskier nodded blankly. He would rather hang out with a bunch of stuffy philosophy majors than the financial district assholes, but he didn’t dare tell his father that. 

Unspoken between any of them, there was also a third option brewing on the horizon. War wasn’t just coming—it was already here. Anyone with half a brain could read the signs that they’d soon need more men. Jaskier felt a cool jolt in his spine when he thought about what was happening in the thick of the jungles. 

He tried not to think about it. 

“I know,” Jaskier said to his father instead. He tried to save himself from the familiar rant about how  _ hard  _ his father worked to set up a comfortable life in New York. The one about how  _ difficult  _ it was and how much they’d  _ sacrificed  _ to be where they were today. 

Jaskier knew they’d given a lot. His father’s family moved to New York in the late 30s. They barely escaped the horrors in Poland the next decade. His mother had never seen the old country herself, but her parents always spoke of it fondly. 

Their New York was different than Jaskier’s. The city of their youth was one he’d like to live in—one of community and struggle and survival. Not one of stuffy apartments and spoiled classmates. He didn’t even speak Polish beyond the few words he’d gleaned from his Busia. 

His parents’ concerns didn’t rub off on him, though. Jaskier applied to schools all along the coast with the help of Miss Malone, his school’s secretary. He’d been accepted to study History at UCLA with a full ride. 

When he opened the letter (with his hands shaking so badly he could hardly tear open the envelope) he nearly cried with joy. 

His life, he thought, would finally begin. He’d make sure of it.

* * *

By the time the cab pulls up in front of the boarding house, the world is dark. How quickly the sun sets here surprises Jaskier—in New York, tt takes hours for the sun to sink over the Hudson. But the nights are never as warm. 

He wears only his polo shirt, his jacket tucked in his suitcase, but he doesn’t feel the need to go digging for it. A warm sea breeze rushes over him as he makes his way to the trunk and hauls out his suitcase and guitar case. He packed light for this trip. His mother insisted he’d be out of clothing before the end of the month, but Jaskier shrugged her off. He didn’t need the thick knit sweaters and rain jackets and boots here. And what he didn’t have, he’d buy. The style here is different, anyway. Not sleek and important, like New York. 

Besides, he needs new clothes anyway. Cooler clothes. One for when he plays shows. It’s not like he came to Los Angeles just for  _ school _ . He’s not insane. There are plenty of great schools in warm places all around the world. 

He came, mostly, because of the music. 

There’s nowhere else on Earth with more of a bustling music scene. Hell, there’s no music scene in  _ history _ Jaskier would be on the ground for—save maybe jazz in the 20s. But he’s here, he’s alive, and he’s ready to make the most of it. 

He walks up the path to the boarding house and—for the first time—his gut twists. What if the owner doesn’t like him? What if it’s not what he expected? For the past months, he focused only on getting here. Now that he’s here, Jaskier doesn’t know what to do with all the jitters he holds. 

He takes a deep breath and studies the house. In his head, he’d imagined the place in a dozen different ways—a grand mansion, a rundown shack, an angular modern building, a New York style brownstone—but the truth is that it looks like a fairly ordinary house. One not too different from anywhere else where houses popped up in weeks to meet the demand of the booming population.

The house is slung low to the ground and tucked behind a few bushes and a palm; bricks decorate the first level and give way to wooden panels for the second floor. If he still had daylight, Jaskier suspects he could see the giant hills not far in the distance. 

Off to one side, under the carport, sits a powder blue Valiant. Jaskier doesn’t exactly have a brimming knowledge of cars, but he guesses its an early model of the car—’59 or ‘60. He never thought his mother’s friend of a friend would be the type to own a car like that, but he rolls with it nonetheless. It's California, after all. Things are done differently here. 

He knocks on the door, straightens his back, and tries not to bounce on his feet. The nervous energy is bound to drive him insane. 

Finally, the door opens. The woman standing in front of him is a petite thing, slender and short, with warm blonde curls to her shoulder. “You must be Julian,” she says, sticking out her hand. “I’m Shanon.”

He takes her hand and shakes it. “Please, call me Jaskier.”

She nods and welcomes him into the house. It’s not what he expected, but he couldn’t honestly say  _ what _ he expected. The living room is plain with a few houseplants on the far windowsill, an orange rug in the centre, and a low back brown couch in front of a television set. 

“Welcome to my home,” she says. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks,” he says. He clears his throat. “Um, I like your car.”

“My car?”

“Yeah… the blue one? Outside?”

“Oh,” Shanon says. “That’s not mine.” A grey cat slinks out from around the sofa and Shanon runs her hand over its back. “The Valiant belongs to my other border—you’ll meet him in the morning. I’m sure you two will get along. He can be a bit standoffish at first, but once you get to know him he’s a softie.

“Your room is upstairs, first door on the left,” she continues after a beat. “The washroom is down the hall. I’ll let you get settled. If you want breakfast, it’s at eight in the morning. If you sleep in, you’re on your own.” She doesn’t wait for Jaskier to respond, she only nods once and then takes off into the kitchen.

Jaskier thinks Shanon is a bit odd—she’s slightly lofty and has a dazed look in her eyes. 

But he doesn’t hold it against her. He’s never been one for stellar first impressions either. He had the biggest crush on Janie Marks in his freshman year, only to ruin it five minutes after he introduced himself when he tried to help her with her textbooks and knocked her into a locker instead. Under Janie’s dark hair, she had an impressive bump on her temple and never spoke to him again. 

Jaskier readjusts his grip on his bags and heads up the stairs. When he opens the door to the first room on the left, he’s pleasantly surprised by what he sees. The bed is bigger than expected (he’d made do with a single back in New York) and the desk on the opposite wall has plenty of room for his books. On the far side, there’s a great space for his guitar under a large window that looks out over the street. He sets his bags on the floor and flops onto the bed. His body sinks into the mattress and he wonders if he should fall asleep right here, with both his clothes and the light still on. It’s wonderful, even if the plaid sheets aren’t exactly his style. The walls are plain white, at least. It’s an impersonal sort of space, but one he could project himself onto. 

Jaskier closes his eyes for a moment. The room smells a tad stale—no one has been here for a while—but it also carries the summer warmth. He could spend hours just resting like this—on a big, comfortable bed, with nothing to worry about. 

But he can’t. Not yet. 

Instead, he rises gingerly and moves to open his window. A light breeze wafts in. He drags his hand over his face, trying to rid himself of the lingering tiredness from his trip. It’s only for a few minutes that he needs to stave off the exhaustion, but his eyes droop each time he blinks. 

Jaskier pulls a pair of grey pyjamas from his suitcase. He’ll shower, freshen up, and head to sleep. It’s a wonderful plan. 

Where did Shanon say the washroom was? Across the hall? Jaskier pushes the door across for his room open. 

He freezes. In front of him a man—naked from the waist up—stands in front of a set of drawers, folding a shirt. He’s maybe a few years older than Jaskier, but he looks as like he’d fit in better down on Muscle Beach, not here in the suburbs. Jaskier is so distracted by the v-line of muscle that dips under his belt that it takes him a moment to register there’s something strange about the man: his hair is pure grey. It’s full and cropped close to his skull, but it’s much too grey to belong on the head of a man that young. 

The man also stills. He turns his head to Jaskier. A muscle in his jaw twitches. His handsome features twist into a look of anger. “Get out.” His eyebrows knit together and crease lines on his forehead. His dark eyes narrow and, for a fraction of a second, Jaskier swears they glow. 

“Oh, fuck,” Jaskier says and averts his eyes. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I thought this was the bathroom.” 

The man folds his shirt and shoved it into the top drawer. “Down the hall,” he grunts. 

“Thanks,” Jaskier says. He bits his lip—it shouldn’t be funny, but it kind of is. He moves to close the door. “I’m Jaskier, by the way.”

Something in the man’s face hardens. “Get. Out.” He moves across the room in heavy steps and pushes the door shut.

Jaskier stands in the hall, his heart pounding under his ribs. So much for being on friendly terms with his new housemates. He runs his hand through his hair and lets himself breathe. 

As Jaskier walks to the actual washroom, he can’t help but think about the man. Even beyond the mutual embarrassment, there’s something deep in his mind that can’t let go of. The man seems… familiar. Sort of. Like something from a half-forgotten dream.

_ Or maybe fantasy, _ he thinks. That option is more likely. 

Jaskier lets out a half-snort of a laugh. He’s been in California for all of an hour and he’s already losing his mind. 

God help him for the rest of the year ahead. 


	2. Here Without You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a minute since I updated!  
> I rewrote the first chapter (which now functions more as a prologue now). Most of it is the same, but a few small details have changed.  
> The title is a song by The Byrds.  
> Enjoy!

**Year 1, Semester 1**

**1965**

Four days later marks his first day of class and Jaskier hasn’t so much as seen a flash of white hair from the man across the hall. He brought it up with Shanon at breakfast one day. 

Shanon only shrugged. “He comes and goes as he likes.”

Jaskier lets that line of inquiry die. He knows enough to see he’s unlikely to learn anything new about his neighbour in the near future. Instead, he passes his first days in Los Angeles playing his guitar, walking along the beach, exploring the city, and hunting down live shows. His face is a shade redder than the brown he hoped for, but he’s sure it’ll fade in time. When he goes back home for Christmas, Jaskier wants to look as if he’s spent his whole life at the beach. If not at the beach, then playing his guitar. He’ll fit class somewhere in the middle. 

The campus is beautiful. In some ways it's so different from anything out on the East coast, but in others, it feels like any college campus. Brick buildings. Grand trees. Students lounging about on the quad. Jaskier digs his hands in the pockets of his slacks and smiles to himself as he makes his way across the campus. If he were back in New York (or Boston or Chicago or anywhere but here), he’d be wearing some stiff sweater instead of a short-sleeved polo. He even feels more formal than some of the other students walking about in short skirts and loose-fitting pants. 

He unfolds his schedule and rereads it for the hundredth time of the day. He’s certain he’ll never live it down if he walks into the wrong class. Even if he does, he’d rather sit through an hour of an advanced astrophysics lecture than admit to his mistake. 

Eventually, he does find the room. History 101. It’s the largest lecture theatre in an older brick building and (judging by the youthful and nervous faces) he guesses he’s in the right place. Inside, the air is a bit stale. He wonders if it’s from a lack of use over the summer or if it’s a persistent problem. As he picks a seat near the back, he sees the woman next to him has written _History 101_ in the top corner of her coiled notebook. Jaskier relaxes into his seat a little. The desktop is barely big enough to hold his notepad, which makes it a bit of a trick to set up. He shoves his bag into a spot near his feet, adjusts his paper, and spins his pen in his hand. He taps the blue cap against the paper in a steady beat. The ghost of a song has haunted his head for some time, but he can never seem to exorcise it. 

The woman next to him clears her throat. Her hair is long and dark with a bumped curl at the ends. Against her warm brown skin, her blouse seems extra white. The sleeves are long and flowing and the top is tucked into a pair of high waisted jeans, a fit none of the girls back in New York wore. 

Jaskier stops tapping. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “just a bit nervous.”

At his confession, the woman’s annoyed expression melts away. “Me too,” she admits. “I’m Judy, by the way.” 

“Jaskier.” 

Judy doesn’t comment on his name and Jaskier decides he likes her already for that alone. He turns from Judy and looks up at the ceiling. It’s made of wood slats. Jaskier vaguely wonders how many there are. He’s sure that someone, at some point, got bored enough to count them. Give it a few weeks and he might just be bored enough to count them, too. 

“Class.”

A jolt runs down Jaskier’s spine and he pulls his gaze from the ceiling. He knows that voice. He heard it last night. His heart rattles and he has half a mind to grab his bag and run away, but he’s blocked in the centre of the row of seats. 

The man with the white hair stands at the front of the lecture hall. He’s dressed a bit strangely in slacks, a white dress shirt, and a grey tie. He’d fit in better in 1955 than today. 

“Is he our professor?” Jaskier whispers to Judy. In his head, all professors were about eighty years old and walked with a hunch and had permanent smug looks etched on their faces. 

Judy shakes her head and Jaskier feels the tension ease out of his shoulders. “TA,” Judy whispers back. “My older brother had Dr. Anderson. Brilliant guy, but hates teaching so he shrugs it off and on to his grad students when he can.”

Behind them, some whispers to hush, so they do. 

At the front of the room, Mr. White-hair-and-muscles is giving a short speech. Saying something about the syllabus (copies of which are being passed around the room). No excuses for missed work. The day of the midterm. Jaskier feels small in this giant room, but exposed at the same time. He didn’t even catch the man’s name. 

The man’s eyes run over the room and Jaskier swears they linger a moment too long when they reach him. His Adam's apple bobs and he closes his eyes for a fraction of a second. When he opens them again, he carries on as if nothing is wrong. “Any questions?”

No one in the lecture hall speaks up. 

“We’ll end there for today, then. Dr. Anderson will be here Wednesday for your first official lecture. Don’t be late.” His voice is rough and flat, as if it pains him to speak. 

The other students stand to leave and start filtering out. Jaskier shoulders his bag and looks from the door to the man. _Fuck it._ Instead of following the other students, Jaskier clamours down the stairs and walks up to the man. 

He doesn’t look at Jaskier. He shoves his papers in a briefcase.

“Look,” Jaskier says. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.” 

The man straightens his spine, locks eyes with Jaskier, and frowns. Under his gaze, Jaskier wishes he could sink into the floor. Or disappear on the spot. He’d take either. The man’s nostrils flare. “Hmm.” He pushes past Jaskier and follows the waning crowd of students out the door. 

Jaskier stands alone in the lecture hall. He rocks back onto his heels and lets his breath out his nose. Is it too much to ask to make a good impression for just once in his life? 

  
  


* * *

Over the next few weeks, Jaskier falls into a new routine. He goes to his classes, he studies in the library, and, in his dwindling amount of spare hours, he plays his guitar. On the weekends, he calls back home and listens to his mother fret about his wellbeing and his father offer him a job at this company. He even goes to the beach a few times. It works well enough, and before he knows it, Septemeber winds into October. 

Life in Los Angeles is the only thing Jaskier dreamed of for so many years. 

So why is he so lonely?

In his bedroom, he thinks about his time in the city. He tosses the book he’s been reading for English onto his nightstand and leans back, fingers laced behind his head. In the white paint of the ceiling, he searches for imperfections. Shanon is nice enough, but she’s a bit of a flake. Sometimes Jaskier can’t tell if she’s talking to her cat or him. Judy from history is nice enough, but they haven’t gotten far past small talk. A few times he’s spoken with the other students in his classes, or flirted with girls he meets in the cafeteria. Nothing sparks. 

Before he moved here, he imagined it would be simple to meet people. When had it become so hard? At the very least, he expected he’d have a housemate to talk to (even if they weren’t exactly friends) but Jaskier’s hardly seen the man across the hall since the first day of class. He comes in late and leaves early. He doesn’t eat meals with Shanon and Jaskier. Dr. Anderson teaches the class now--clearly regarding the undergrads as if they were dirt under his Oxford shoes--and Jaskier’s only seen the man seated in the lecture a handful of times. 

Jaskier doesn’t even know his name. At this point, it’s too late to ask. The only thing Jaskier really knows about the man is that the blue Valiant in the carport belongs to him. Sometimes, late at night, he hears the engine as it pulls in. Tonight, it’s still out. 

Jaskier rubs his face, changes into his pyjamas, and flicks off the light in his room, even though it’s still early. He’s got nothing better to do than sleep. 

* * *

On a Saturday in mid-October, Jaskier learns that Shanon is a painter with a studio by the beach. A flush warms his cheeks when he realizes he never bothered to ask her she did all day. 

“I have a show today if you’d like to come,” Shanon offers. “I could use a hand setting up.”

Jaskier nods. He’s been craving social interaction of any kind lately. He has a midterm on Monday, which he really should study for, but he can do it when he’s back. 

Together, they take the bus down to her place.

It’s a wonderful studio. Jaskier’s jaw clamps shut before he voices his disbelief. Shanon--lofty, strange, turtle-neck wearing Shanon--has a studio that most artists would die for. The space is white with light hardwood floors, a giant skylight, and the back isn’t a wall but is instead floor to ceiling windows that look out over the ocean. 

Jaskier closes his eyes and feels the warmth of the sun against his skin. “It’s lovely, Shanon.”

She flashes him a crooked smile and beams. 

Her art is already on display. The paintings are large and modern--which is to say that Jaskier doesn’t quite understand it, though he can’t take his eyes away from the strange beauty of the brush strokes. “It’s like a dream come to life,” he says. 

Shanon nods. “I’d like to think so.” She moves next to Jaskier and stands there, staring at her own painting. “You know, when I was young, my mother took me to see a fortune teller. She told me that I had the gift of sight.”

“Really?” Jaskier tries to keep the doubtful note out of his voice, but he’s unsure how well he succeeds. 

“It’s true. Sometimes I have these dreams--dreams of todays and tomorrows and yesterdays--that are so vivid, I really don’t think it’s possible for them to be anything but real.”

She speaks with so much conviction that Jaskier almost believes her. How could anyone see the future? Wouldn’t that mean everything was predestined?

“There’s magic in this world, Jaskier, if you know where to look. Fate pulls on the strings of our lives more than you or I know.” 

Jaskier simply nods at her statement. He turns to set up the plastic table for refreshments and mulls over Shanon’s statement. The idea of fate has always sat sour in his head. Where’s the fun in life if the endpoint is picked for you?

That night, after the show, Jaskier sits alone in his room. His fingers float over his guitar strings without actually pressing them down. He hums the tune to himself and scribbles his progress in his notebook. Music, he knows, is real. Nothing can change the flutter in his heart or his ache to create. He stays up till the sun cracks open the day, dreaming about the day someone will listen to him play. 

* * *

Jaskier nearly fails his history midterm. He stares at the paper while sitting on the grass in the quad after class. Harsh red marks blot the pages. His stomach churns as he flips through the pages. Sure, he didn’t study as much as he could have, but he thought he had a decent understanding of the class. It wasn’t as if he’d done jack in class for the past six weeks. 

He flops on his back and stares up at the clouds. Dr. Andserson is an ass. The course was supposed to be easy: an overview of history as a discipline, moreso than an in-depth look at any time period. Somehow, he still fucked it up. 

If he knew LA would be so unlike how he imagined it, he wonders if he still would have come. In the bright October sun, he even finds himself missing the way the trees turned colour in New York. From his old bedroom, he could watch the maple trees in Central Park turn deep red. They always glowed against the grey sky. 

* * *

Judy invites Jaskier to a party at the end of October. It’s the first time he’s been out properly in a long while. Even back in New York, the parties he went to were fairly subdued. Not many people he knew had space for more than a few people to come over and drinking in the parks tended to catch the fuzz’s attention. 

When he enters the house with Judy by his side, the loud music rings in his ears. It’s not really his taste. It grinds against his head. 

“Everything alright?” Judy nearly yells to him. 

Jaskier nods. The small room is full, but not as packed as it could be, with a few dozen people milling about. The air is thick with humidity and the scent of strong, cheap liquor lingers in the air. 

Judy pours them drinks and Jaskier tries not to make a face as he knocks back the mix. Coke and rum. “Did you pour equal parts?”

Judy replies with a wicked smile and leads him into the crowd. She swings her hips to the music and Jaskier joins in the dance. His movement must look horrible--he feels much too awkward and stiff for all this. He finishes his drink and hopes the alcohol will give him courage. 

It does, for a bit. 

He mingles with the crowd. They’re all Judy’s friends from a few various student groups. They all seem like great people. Laughter rings in the room. The liquor keeps coming. Later in the night, the air turns heady. 

When the blunt gets round to Jaskier, he takes a few hits. He smoked a bit, back in New York, but he never made a pastime out of it. 

Across the room, Judy smiles at him. Jaskier gives her a weak smile back. It’s a great party. Judy’s friends are fantastic. They all seem to be loving the moment. The music playing on the record player isn’t even too bad, once he gets used to it. He should be having a great time. 

So why isn’t he?

Jaskier sighs and waits for a break in the conversation to slip out. He doesn’t say goodbye to Judy. He’ll see her Monday, which gives him lots of time to think of an excuse about why he left before midnight. He walks through the streets of LA--though it doesn’t feel much like LA, far from downtown and the beach--with his hands in his pockets. He hums along to the beat his footsteps make. 

His head floats a little. His body is a little far away. He might be more gassed than he thought. 

When he reaches Shanon’s house, he lets himself in and swears to be as quiet as he possibly can be. He fails halfway up the stairs when his foot slips and he crashes forward. Jaskier catches himself before he slides down, but his head spins something awful. He’ll take a break, he decides, on the stairs before he reaches his room. It’s actually sort of comfortable when he gets used to it. If he just closes his eyes--

“What are you doing.”

Jaskier’s head snaps up. He blinks away his dizziness. The man with the grey hair stands before him, arms crossed and staring down the line of his nose. 

“I’m climbing the stairs,” Jaskier says. 

“Which is why you’re on the floor.”

“I’m taking a break.” 

The man continues to stare at Jaskier. Is that a hobby of his? Jaskier can’t decide if he wants to disappear or run his finger over the line of concentration worked into the man’s forehead. 

The man lets out a grumble of disapproval. He reaches down and wraps his hand around Jaskier’s arm. Jaskier’s mind grinds to a halt. What is he doing?

Before he can turn his sluggish thoughts to garbled words, the man hauls Jaskier to his feet. “Sleep on your side tonight,” he instructs Jaskier. His eyes sweep over Jaskier and he frowns, slightly, but mostly his face looks blank and expressionless. 

He turns back into his room and shuts his door.

In the hallway, Jaskier rubs his tired eyes and tries to make sense of what just happened. No matter which way he tries to piece it together, it just doesn’t add up. 

* * *

  
  


He wakes in the morning with a rattling hangover. More than anything, he can’t make sense of what happened on the stairs. His memory doesn’t have any missing pieces, but he can’t be certain that what happened with the man last night wasn’t a dream. 

Jaskier presses the heels of his palms over his eyes. He needs to be productive today. In his small room, he’s bound to go stir crazy. 

He chugs a glass of water, pops an Advil, and heads to Santa Monica. The sun is painfully bright, even with his sunglasses, and he feels sticky and warm. He’d like to say he’ll never drink again, but he knows that’s a lie. 

When he reaches the beach, he walks aimlessly down the street. He didn’t really have a plan besides ‘get out’. One the one side of him, cars flow past. Sunliners and Fords and a few Mustangs. To the other side of him are beachgoers. No one is in a bathing suit at this time of year, but there’s still a few small groups of people enjoying the sun. In New York, a day like this would draw a crowd. 

Jaskier breaths in the sea breeze and smog. If he could bottle up Los Angeles, this would be the perfume. 

Along his walk, he reaches a little hole in the wall with a paint-chipped sign that reads “Sunrise Records”. He goes in and smiles to himself. He feels like he’s coming home. 

The guy behind the till has long shaggy hair and nods at Jaskier. He flips through the rows of records, wishing he could but the whole lot. 

“Need any help, dude?” 

Jaskier pauses. He doesn’t exactly have endless pocket money, but he hasn’t been spending much either, considering how much he’s stayed in. “Do you have any record players?”

Jaskier takes the bus home with full hands. He’s got a new record player and two vinyls—one of the Beach Boys and one of the Beatles. 

He sets the record _Twist and Shout_ in his player and dips the needle in the track. 

The sound fills his room, full and warm, and for the first time in months, Jaskier feels a little less alone. 

* * *

October winds into November and November passes even more quickly than the last two months combined. Jaskier has piles of homework and readings and papers, and his guitar ends up sitting under his window gathering more dust than he’d like. 

When Thanksgiving rolls around, the campus turns into a ghost town. Most of his classmates are back home with their family, but Jaskier opted to stay. He’ll be home for Christmas anyway. 

On the night before Thanksgiving, he stays up much too late and works on his English essay by lamplight. 

Around three in the morning, he hears the rumble of tires on the pavement near the house. Nosey as always, he turns to his window to see the blue Valiant pull into the carport. 

The man with grey hair steps out. He looks pissed off—his face is wrought with lines. His crisp white dress shirt is pushed up his forearms and unbuttoned. 

Jaskier pales as he considers the rest of the man. Dark, splattered flecks coat the left side of the man’s face and body. Blood. 

The man storms over to the front door and Jaskier’s gut twists: the man is not limping or wincing. 

The blood isn’t his. 

Jaskier swallows and turns back to his English essay. He doesn’t get much further in his paper; it’s too difficult to concentrate on _The Great Gatsby._ The mystery of the man across the hall might be one he needs to let lie. 

* * *

Jaskier makes himself a regular fixture at Sunrise Records. Pocket change is tight, but he’s happy to browse. Sam (the shaggy-haired owner) is always willing to chat about guitar and swap him music recommendations. 

A few days after Thanksgiving, Jaskier visits. He hopes it’ll take his mind off his bloody housemate, but he doubts it will. In any case, it’s the first time he’s actually felt cold since he landed in LA. Clouds blot out the sun and a breezy chill runs under his light jacket. He’s got enough money to pick something up (though Sam hasn’t kicked him out for loitering yet) and Jaskier swears that music helps him focus when he studies. 

He opens the door. The musty scent of old records hit his nose. He swears there’s nothing better in the world.

“Jaskier,” Sam says with a smile. “I was hoping you’d drop by.”

“Can’t get enough of customers who browse and never buy?”

He lets out a rusty chuckle. “As much as my business runs on that model, I was actually hoping you’d come by ‘cause I have something for you.”

“Oh?” Jaskier leans in, his interest piqued. 

Sam slides a slip of paper across the counter. “I have a friend who runs a bar--the White Wolf--and they do live music. The opening act dropped out for Friday and they need someone to fill in. I gave him your name.”

“Really?” Jaskier’s heart flutters as he unfolds the slip of paper. The digits of a phone number are scrawled in spiked print. 

“He wants you to do an audition tonight--if you’re interested, that is.” 

Jaskier smiles so wide he’s certain his face will stay frozen that way. 

He goes to the White Wolf that night. It’s quiet, but he supposes that’s to be expected for a Monday night. Jaskier’s shoes stick to the floor and the light’s so low that he can barely see a few feet in front of him, but he buzzes with excitement. 

The owner is a gruff, rock-and-roll looking sort of guy named Paul. 

Jaskier feels a tad awkward playing a few of his songs for only Paul and the few stragglers at the bar, but he pours his heart into it anyway.

Paul crosses his arms. His face gives no hint as to what he thinks, but after Jaskier’s second song, he starts to tap his foot along to the beat. 

When Jaskier strums his final note, he turns to Paul and waits for his reaction. 

“You got potential,” Paul says after a few seconds that feel like a thousand years. “I’ll let you play this Friday, but no promises after that.”

Jaskier nods and thanks him and talks over the details in an I-mean-business voice that would make even his father proud. 

Internally, Jaskier squeals like a five-year-old girl who got a pony for Christmas. 

* * *

He sees Judy again when classes return after the break. 

“I have something for you,” she says, reaches into her backpack, and pulls out a brown paper bag. “Here.”

“Thanks?”

“It’s leftovers. My mother was horrified when she learned you weren’t having a proper Thanksgiving meal. Turkey and potatoes and stuffing.”

“Does your mother know she’s an angel?” 

“She doesn’t need an ego boost.”

Jaskier carefully tucks the leftovers in his own bag. His stomach gurgles at the thought of food. Shanon wasn’t the worst cook ever, she just had other things on her mind more often than not. She burned a pot of soup the other night because she was distracted thinking about the shade of blue she wanted for her next painting. 

Dr. Anderson drones on about history and William Stubbs and Herodotus. 

Judy rolls her eyes. 

Jaskier raises an eyebrow as if to ask ‘what’.

“It’s a narrow view of history, isn’t it?” she whispers. 

“Anderson leaves a lot of people out,” Jaskier agrees. 

“He’s never had to think about anyone besides the people who were exactly like him,” she says under her breath. 

After class, when they’re all flittering out of the lecture theatre, Dr. Anderson picks him out. “Julian? A word.”

Jaskier shoots a look at Judy. He couldn’t have heard their conversation. Could he?

Anderson walks over to his desk and lifts a paper off the top.

Jaskier’s heart sinks into his stomach and it sits like a stone. It’s his essay, he realizes. The one he turned in last week. He couldn’t have done _that_ badly on it. 

“This is your essay, no?”

“Uh, yes?” Did the man have to speak in riddles? 

“You wrote it.”

“Yes.”

Anderson’s bare head shines in the dull light. “By yourself.”

Jaskier bites back his snark. “Yes,” he stresses. 

“You see, now that’s what I’m having a hard time believing.”

Ice spreads through Jaskier’s veins. “I don’t understand.”

“You nearly failed your midterm, yet this paper is one of the best ones I’ve read. I’d be impressed if a senior student submitted it, let alone a freshman.” 

“I went to the library,” Jaskier snaps. He worked for hours on that paper—how dare he suggest Jaskier cheated. 

“Even the topic: _historical bias in the accounts of the battle of Sodden Hill._ Oddly specific. Most of your classmates chose to write about a world war.”

Jaskier feels his chest tighten. His head turns. There’s no way he’s going to talk himself out of this one. “I’ve always been interested in the topic,” he says. Even if he loses, he’s not going to let Anderson walk all over him. 

“Have you now?”

From behind Jaskier, someone clears his throat. Jaskier recognizes the low tone. He tries not to freeze up completely, but it’s hard to forget that the last time he saw the man he was flecked in _blood._

“George,” the man says. “He came to my office hours a few weeks ago to brainstorm the topic. He’d been in the library for hours.” He looks at Jaskier, his eyes narrow. 

For a moment, Jaskier sees that glow again, the one he saw on the first night he met the man. But Jaskier gets his hint—for some reason, whatever it might be, the man’s helping him. Jaskier nods fervently. “I know I messed up the midterm, but I promise I worked to turn my mark around.” 

Anderson stares between the two of them. His face is tight, as if something is causing him physical pain. “Fine,” he says and hands Jaskier the paper. “But know that I expect just as an impressive show from you on the final.”

Jaskier blinks at his paper. When he turns to thank his housemate, he finds the man’s not there anymore. How does he move so quietly?

Jaskier stays up late that night. He waits til he hears the familiar sound of the Valiant pulling into the carport. For good measure, he peaks out his window when he hears the door open. No blood this time, but he does look frustrated. Jaskier suspects that might be a permanent sort of thing with the man. 

He waits by his door until he hears the steps on the stairs. He should’ve taken a shot of something for courage, but it’s too late now. Jaskier yanks open his bedroom door and catches the man in the hallway. “Hey,” he says.

The man’s eyes widen, but his face quickly falls into a flat expression. “Hi.”

“I wanted to say thank you. For today.” The man didn’t have to help him. Jaskier knows he didn’t see him work on that paper. Even though he didn’t cheat, the man had no way of knowing that for sure. 

“Don’t mention it,” he grumbles and starts to reach for the handle. 

“I mean it,” Jaskier says. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

A rush of air comes from the man’s nose. “I’ll start a tab.”

“If you’re starting one, then you might as well add this on: I don’t actually know your name,” Jaskier admits. It’s probably the wrong thing to ask. He probably should have asked Judy or Shanon or anyone else in his history lecture. 

The man’s face softens. “Geralt,” he says. 

He doesn’t elaborate. 

As Jaskier lays in bed, he turns the name over in his head. Geralt. 

It’s a lovely name, he decides. One that shines with death and destiny. 

* * *

Jaskier sees Judy in the library while he studies for his finals. 

She tears a corner out of her textbook, writes a number on it, and slides it across the table. 

“In a few weeks, when you’re back with your fancy friends in New York, don’t forget about me, okay?”

Jaskier promises her he won’t. 

* * *

After what feels like forever, Friday rolls around. The calendar reads December 3rd, but Jaskier finds it hard to believe. He feels as if he landed in Los Angeles days ago, not months. Aside from a few specific areas, he hardly knows the city. He’s gotten to know a handful of people. The prospect of returning to New York in a few weeks even seems appealing. Jaskier shakes his head. His younger self would kick him for thinking as much. 

He goes to the White Wolf with a sliver of hope, though. He never feels as comfortable in his skin as when he’s playing music. There’s just something that’s so _right_ when he feels the strings of his guitar vibrate under his fingers. 

He sets up on the stage and he realizes that maybe Monday wasn’t abnormally quiet at the White Wolf--despite it being Friday night, the bar’s more empty than not. This, Jaskier decides, is almost worse than a packed room. He stands on the stage and swallows back his nerves. 

“Hello, everyone. I’m Jaskier.” He cringes at himself. His voice sounds strange when it echos off the walls. “I’ve got a few songs for you tonight before--” Jaskier stops. He tries to remember the name of the band playing after him, but he can’t-- “before the next band is up.”

 _Deepbreathdeepbreathdeepbreath._ “Anywhere, here’s a song I wrote. It’s called ‘Back in New York’.” 

Jaskier launches into the song. His voice doesn’t crack, which he counts as a win. The song is about his lover, who he left back in New York. He sings about how tragic it all is. How heartbreaking. How he’ll get his mojo back. 

It’s all made up, of course. He never went steady with anyone back in New York. Sure, he had a few crushes but he figured there was no point shacking up with anyone back East when he knew his destiny was on the West coast. 

The song earns a smattering of polite applause. 

Jaskier continues on with his set. He sings about all his ex-lovers and jilted rivals and the peaks and valleys of life. 

The crowd stays lukewarm. No one boos him off the stage, but he doesn’t finish his songs to resounding cheers either. Disappointment presses at his ego. He tries to brush it away. 

Halfway through his final song, he spots the flash of grey hair in the corner. Geralt’s in a booth, alone, working on a beer. He’s wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and a dark jacket, which is a more casual look than Jaskier’s ever seen him sport. Jaskier pries his eyes away, lest he think that Jaskier’s staring. Not that Geralt hasn’t stared at him, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

Jaskier ends the song with a riff on his guitar. He’s not the Beatles, not even Ringo, but it’s alright for his first-ever live show. He thinks. 

After he finishes, Jaskier doesn’t bother with pleasantries. He hops off the small stage and beelines through the crowd to Geralt. He can’t help himself. There’s something about Geralt that Jaskier can’t let go of. 

“So,” he says, plunking himself down across the table from Geralt. “What did you think? Three words.”

Geralt’s mouth quirks in the closest thing to a smile that Jaskier’s ever seen. “They don’t exist,” he says.

“Who?”

“The people in your songs. It’s clear you made them up.”

Jaskier flushes. “Well, I guess I’ll have to change that then.”

“I guess so.” Geralt takes a swig of beer. Without elaborating, he stands and pays and leaves.

* * *

In the second week of December, Jaskier writes his history final. The lecture theatre is more full than he ever remembers it being (besides maybe the first day) and the room buzzes with nervous energy. 

Geralt walks down the row, proctoring the exam. He’s back in slacks and a dress shirt today. When he passes Jaskier, Jaskier feels his gaze linger on him for a moment too long. 

Jaskier’s sure it means nothing. 


	3. Train Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title song by Vashti Bunyan

**Winter Break**

**1965-1966**

New York is nothing like Jaskier remembers. The skyline hasn’t changed; the makes and models of cars that zip past on the road are still the same. Yet there’s something about it that’s just not the same as before he left. 

On his first night back, he catches himself staring at the lights strung up on the trees in Central Park. It’s bitterly cold, now. He’s wrapped in a knit-sweater, a jacket, a scarf, mittens, and a hat, but his fingers are still numb. For the first time in months, he’s properly chilled. He pushes his hands in the pockets of his coat. This time last year, he would’ve lowered his head and hurried back to his apartment. Instead, he takes the long way back. He loops through the park and stares at the ponds (frozen and snow-covered) and the people (red-cheeked and merry). Fat snowflakes lazily drift to the ground. How could this be the same place he left? 

When he finally does make it back to his parents’ apartment, he hangs his coat in the closet and sets his mittens on the radiator to dry out the dampness. 

His mother hands him a steaming mug of tea. “I wish you wouldn’t go out so late,” she says. She bundles her hands in front of her. “It’s all the same in the day and your half as likely to twist and ankle or get mugged.” She squeezes his shoulder gently.

Jaskier is ready to spit out an answer about how he’s perfectly capable of looking out for himself. He’s done it just fine the last three months in LA. He doesn’t need anyone watching his back; he can watch it on his own.

But his argument flames out. She’s only wants him to be safe. He bites back his snark and he doesn’t fight her, this time. 

* * *

On Christmas Eve, they go to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The smouldering scent of low-burning candles and incense fill Jaskier’s nostrils. He sings the hymns--all familiar carols, tonight--and eyes his parents next to him, both dressed neatly. His mother even wears her red coat for the season. 

When he was younger, Jaskieri hated it here. He despised being forced into scratchy, uncomfortable clothes. He dreaded being dragged out of bed every Sunday. The church was always either too hot or too cold and his mother would stand around for almost another hour after the service ended, chatting away with the other parishioners. 

Today, Jaskier didn’t mind it. In fact, he almost could see why his parents always insisted on attending. He’s never been particularly moved by the faith (a fact which he will hide from his mother until the day he dies, god willing), but he never bothered to open his eyes to see the second part of what brought everyone together--the community. The white-haired ladies who’d coo over how much he’d grown. Kids, now nearly as tall as himself, who he’d first seen as fat-cheeked babies. Even his mother’s friend have a certain sort of endearing, although thin, charm. 

They sing _O Come, All Ye Faithful_ as the procession exits. The vocals of the choir echo off the high cross-beams of the Gothic architecture. Voices, interweaving. Stitching together a song of a story that transcends time. The music, in this place, is alive. If Jaskier was a religious man, he’d worship song and pray to harmony. 

Music, after all, is universal. It doesn’t care what tongue people speak, or what god they pray to. It sounds in the soul, all the same. 

“Julian,” his father whispers.   
Jaskier pulls himself from his thoughts. The crowd slowly exits the pew, and Jaskier follows, genuflecting as he leaves. He might’ve skipped out on church over the past few months, but the rituals never leave. 

In the lobby, a crowd mills about. People chat, babies are shown off, and kids whisper about Santa Claus. His mother, evidently, finds a group of ladies she’s known for years. His father finds a man he knows from work, and the two of them dip into a conversation about their predictions for profit in the upcoming year.

Jaskier stares at the stain-glass windows. They’re beautiful and intricate and it amazes him, more than a little, that people found a way to create something so delicate before they’d even figured out to wash their hands. 

“Julian,” his mother calls and waves him over. “You remember Carol’s daughter, right? Stella?”

Before Jaskier stands a girl, maybe a year or so younger than him. Her blonde hair is loose and curls around her shoulders. She looks sophisticated in a sleek black turtleneck. When Jaskier smiles at her, her cheeks flush pink and she dips her chin to her shoulder. 

When they were younger, they’d race each other on the sidewalk next to the church while they waited for their parents. One time, Jaskier tripped and went skidding over the pavement, tearing a hole in the knee of his best pair of pants. With teary eyes, he ran his finger over the rip and his bloody knee underneath. 

“My mom’s gonna be so mad,” he confessed to Stella. She’d told him many times that these clothes weren’t for playing. 

Stella placed her hands on her hips. “If you wore a dress, you wouldn’t have to deal with that problem.”

Now, Stella held an echo of that girl, but she was different, too. More subdued, in some ways. Like someone had taken her wild spark and used it as a candle. 

“Hi,” Jaskier said. 

“It’s good to see you, Jaskier.”

He smiled earnestly at her. He hadn’t expected her, after all these years, to remember his nickname.

* * *

On Christmas morning, Jaskier wakes up like a child: much too early and buzzing with energy. He hums to himself as he brews a lot of coffee and scratches notes in his book while he waits for his parents to rise. 

He can’t stop thinking about Stella. Sure, they’d been friends as children, but there was something else about her he couldn’t place. He would swear he’d seen her before. It’s like a hazy memory of a dream—Stella lounges on a settee in an elaborate, Medieval dress, pricking a needle through a ring of embroidery. He says something to her (or maybe he sings it) and Stella smiles wickedly. She opens her mouth to shoot back a reply, but Jaskier can’t hear her words. From there, the scene goes dark. It’s not just a casual fade away, either. No—it’s like a thick curtain is pulled to hide away the memory, but Jaskier _knows_ there’s something happening behind the scenes. If only he could remember…

When his parents finally do rise, they sit together next to the tree and open the modest bundle of presents. 

It’s a wonderful scene, Jaskier thinks. A perfect little family in a nice apartment, waiting to eat some good food. It’s not as adventurous as the life he craves, but maybe it’s not so bad, after all. Stability has a compelling sort of appeal—stay in this moment forever, it beckons, wash away all primal fear. 

As the tears he rips in the green wrapping paper open to reveal a suede, Sherpa-lined jacket, Jaskier smiles wanly. Maybe a stable, simple life isn’t that bad, at the end of the day. 

* * *

He calls Judy a few days later. 

“It’s beautiful out here, Jaskier,” she says, her voice muffled by the distance. “You should’ve stayed.” 

“Maybe next year,” he says half-heartedly. 

“You haven’t lived until you can say you spent Christmas Day on the beach. You know, when we were younger, my brother Michael and I stayed in the sun so long that he made himself sick, you know, from dehydration. It was just awful,” Judy says with a laugh, “spent half the night throwing up my mom’s baking. She wasn’t impressed, you know, because she’d been telling him all day to drink water but he was too busy digging trenches for a sandcastle. You know, he’s one of the competitive types…”

Judy continues with the story, her voice peaking with interest arcs of their childhood exploits. It does sound lovely, Jaskier will admit. But it’s hard to imagine a Christmas anywhere but New York. How could there be Christmas without snow? There certainly wouldn’t be any pine trees or snowmen. Jaskier half-listens to Judy. He winds the cord around his finger and hums and agrees to show he’s still listening, but really he stares out the window of his bedroom, toward Central Park. Light flakes of snow drift to the ground. Cars and cabs drive past, leaving piles of brown-slush in their wake. The sky is a steel shade of grey that cloaks the world. The colour of Geralt’s hair.

Judy might be reminding Jaskier of Los Angeles, but there’s someone else he can’t get out of his head. 

* * *

On New Years, Jaskier stays with his parents. They play board games and watch a rerun of _The Lucy Show_ and play Bing Crosby on the old record player. 

When the clock strikes midnight, Jaskier’s father pours him a skiff of whiskey. It’s strong (much stronger than anything Jaskier would order on his own) and burns as it tears down his throat. His father drinks his own glass with ease. In the dim lamplight, he looks a little older than Jaskier remembers. There are some new lines across his forehead that weren’t there this time last year. For his age, his hair is still full, but it’s flecked with more grey than brown now. “1966,” he says as if that passes as an actual conversation. 

“Yep,” Jaskier replies. 

His father nods and sips his drink. 

In the darkness, with the buzz of whiskey, Jaskier feels the hollowness of his chest surge. How difficult can it be to admit how lost he feels? It should be so simple, to let it spill out. In his mind, he’d built up this sold, shining image of Los Angeles over the years. When he landed, he wasn’t on solid ground, but adrift in the ocean. 

“Dad?” Jaskier starts, gripping his glass until it’s on the brink of shattering. “Can I ask you something?

“What, Julian?” He doesn’t look up from the copy of _National Geographic_ that he’s suddenly found so intriguing. 

Jaskier swallows the bile and bitterness in his throat. “Nevermind,” he says. “It can wait till morning.”

His father nods and flips the glossy page. 

Jaskier pours the last bit of whiskey down the kitchen sink and goes to his room without another word. 

* * *

On January 3rd, his father drives him back to the airport. Their goodbyes are short, but Jaskier thinks it might be better that way. What’s the point in wearing your heart on your sleeve if it just exposes it? As his father’s Buick pulls away from the curb, Jaskier kicks at a rock, buries his hands in his pockets, and sighs. 

Once inside, Jaskier buys a cheap coffee and newspaper. He sits in the lounge, one leg bouncing, and stares at the paper without reading it. Last time he was here, waiting for the same flight, he’d been so excited he could hardly stomach anything. The thought of Los Angeles mad him crackle with energy—the idea of the city made him feel alive. 

Now, he sipped his coffee and tried to ignore the lump in his gut. He would miss New York, this time. He hadn’t realized how comforting the skyscrapers were; he’d taken for granted the ease with which he wandered the streets, for here he knew them as well as the cords of his guitar; he even welcomed the cool chill of the air with an unexpected familiarity. 

Later, when the plane finally takes off, Jaskier fixes his eyes out of the plastic window. Below him, the city shrinks until it’s a miniature town, surrounded by the streams that are the Hudson and East River. 

Jaskier snaps shut the blind. He crosses his arms, closes his eyes, and sinks into the seat. Maybe—if he tries not to think about everything—sleep will come. At the very least, he deserves a painless journey.


	4. Light my Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from a song by The Doors
> 
> "There are things known, and things unknown, and in between there are doors." - Jim Morrison

**Year 1, Semester 2**

**1966**

LA is exactly the same as Jaskier remembers. An ever-present layer of smog sits over the city. It settles into the hills and blurs the skyline. For California, the weather is cool. In New York, this would pass as a nice spring day. Jaskier shrugs on his jacket and stretches his neck side to side. It’s only the first day of the semester and he’s already running late—if he actually gave a shit, he could’ve hurried his sorry ass and caught the next bus, but Jaskier decided an extra ten minutes of sleep was more important. 

Jaskier sighs, hauls his bag onto his bed, and crams in a new notebook. He’s already tired and the semester hasn’t even technically started yet. Weren’t breaks supposed to leave you energized and ready to go? 

He runs his fingers through his hair and arranges the locks in place on his forehead. It’s a touch longer than he usually wears it, but Jaskier finds he doesn’t mind. In fact, it’s sort of trendy. Cool. More like the Beatles and less like a straight-edged guy from New York. 

As he thunders down the stairs, Jaskier hears a pot clang in the kitchen. “Bye Shanon,” Jaskier calls absentmindedly. 

“Hmm.”

Jaskier stops halfway down the steps, his foot hovering above the landing. “Oh.”

In front of the white refrigerator light, Geralt stands, dressed as usual in dark grey slacks and a white button-up shirt. Also, as usual, he’s pushed his sleeves halfway up his forearms, showing off the defined muscle. 

Geralt turns to him—a brown lunch bag in hand—and raises an eyebrow. “Oh?” His mouth quirks up at the edge. 

Was he amused? Jaskier shakes his head slightly. “I just expected Shanon, that’s all.” 

“Well, sorry to disappoint.” He shoves his lunch bag into his leather briefcase without looking at Jaskier. 

“No—no, I didn’t mean it like that, you know—“

“Relax. It was a joke.”

“I knew that.” Jaskier clamps his jaw shut. 

“Sure.” With a breezy sort of ease, Geralt slings the strap of his case over his shoulder and crosses to the door. 

Behind him, Jaskier follows—after all, he doesn’t have much of a choice if he wants to make it to class at all. The truth, though, is that Jaskier really has no clue how to act around the other man. In the four months he’s lived here, he’s only seen Geralt around the house a handful of times. Mostly, he sees his car pulling into the port and him coming and going at all sorts of odd hours. Once, he came home to see Geralt lounging on the sofa watching an episode of _The Beverly Hillbillies_ , but it went as an unspoken agreement between the two of them that he’d never bring it up. 

As Jaskier steps onto the sidewalk and jams his hand into his pockets, Geralt opens his driver’s side door. It would be nice, Jaskier thinks, to own a car. He’s never had his own before. In New York, he’d driven his father’s a few times, but there was never any point in really learning. There were better ways to travel.

“You going to class?”

Jaskier looks up from the cracked pavement. “Um, yes?” Of course, he is—where else would he be going? And, judging from the time on his watch, he really needs to hurry. 

“Get in.” Geralt slips into his car and swings the door shut before Jaskier can ask him anything else.

For a moment, Jaskier stands there, his head trying to catch up to what just happened. The engine hums to life, though, and Jaskier has a decent feeling that Geralt won’t wait while Jaskier tries to sort out his thoughts. He rushes forward and hops into the passenger seat of the Valiant. “Thanks,” he says.

Geralt backs out without checking his mirrors. “Hmm.” 

The ride is smooth, but an awkward tension hangs in the air. In the months since they met, they’d hardly had a conversation of more than a few words. 

“So,” Jaskier says. He’s always been uncomfortable with silence. It makes him want to crawl out of his skin. “Did you have a good Christmas?”

“It was fine.” He keeps his eyes straight ahead on the road, but Jaskier gets the feeling that it’s more out of habit than the fact he’s paying attention. Geralt doesn’t offer anything more. 

Jaskier grips the edge of the door as Geralt speeds into a turn. He closes his eyes and takes a breath. His mother will kill him if he dies in a car crash. “Did you see your family?”

“Hmm.” Against the steering wheel, his knuckles tensed and turned white.

“Um, did you stay here?” 

“Yes.” Again, Geralt doesn’t elaborate. He clears his throat and the muscle bobs with his movement. 

If Jaskier thought the car was tense before, it’s nothing compared to now. He half debates throwing the door open to let himself out in the middle of the road. Honestly, he should’ve just walked. He could be late. Being late would be preferable to being in this tin box. 

Jaskier leans forward to the radio; some music would at least make the silence less palpable. 

“Leave it off.”

Jaskier jerks his hand backward. “Come on, it’s just some music…”

“No.”

Jaskier sucks in a breath and leans back in the seat. Maybe, if he wishes hard enough, he’ll meld into the leather seat. 

“I don’t like music,” Geralt says, his voice deep and dead.

“That’s like saying you don’t like food!” Jaskier can’t help himself. “There’s gotta be _something—_ ”

“There’s not.” Geralt’s brow creases and the corners of his mouth turn down. It’s hardly a change from his usual unemotive look, but a change is still a change. 

Jaskier folds his arms over his chest. _But you were at the White Wolf_? Jaskier could scream. 

When they finally pull into the parking lot on campus, Jaskier’s never been more grateful. The short drive was awkward enough, he couldn’t imagine if it had been any longer. What if they’d gotten stuck in LA’s infamous gridlock? If Jaskier ever has to spend a minute alone in the car with Geralt again, it’ll be too long.

Still, when he gets out and slams the powder blue door behind him, he turns to Geralt and gives him a smile, albeit a thin one. “Thank you.” 

“Hmm.” Geralt locks the door and slips the keys in his pocket. “Don’t mention it.”

Jaskier gets the feeling Geralt isn’t speaking metaphorically.

* * *

All in all, he slips back into the swing of school easily. Over the first few months, he grew accustomed to the library and halls and paper writing and reading. He was fully prepared to rarely have time for himself, and on the odd occasion when he does have a free evening, he spends it holed up in his room, scribbling down lyrics and strumming chords on his guitar. 

It’s not the life he envisioned for himself. 

But it’s not a bad one, either. 

More often than not, he feels a little lost. Like there’s something behind his breastbone that yearns for adventure, and all Jaskier can do is reign it in. Tell that ache to be content with what he has, for now. 

One day, as he’s walking by the beach, he wonders what would happen if he got on a boat and left. He could sail around the world. Would anyone miss him? 

He thinks he wouldn’t miss anything. Maybe that’s the life for him—a wanderer, trailing around the world. No goal, no destination, just freedom to follow his whims.

Maybe, Jaskier thinks, it would be better this way. Maybe if instead of coming to LA, he should’ve bought the cheapest plane ticket and taken off. He could be in Japan or India or France or Peru. Maybe then the din of ordinary life wouldn’t rub off on him. 

Maybe.

Jaskier could build a life on all his maybes.

* * *

Geralt still comes and goes as he pleases. Jaskier will hear the Valiant pull in at all hours of the night. Some mornings he’s gone again before the sun’s fully up. Jaskier’s yet to see him walk in speckled with blood, though. Part of him wonders if he imagined it all. Perhaps in his overtired state, his eyes played a trick on his mind. That would be the most reasonable assumption. 

But Jaskier’s fairly certain it’s the wrong one. 

He asks Shanon about him, one day. 

Shanon looks up from her cat and stares at Jaskier. “What do you mean?”

Jaskier shrugs. Have his cheeks always felt so hot? “I just don’t know much about him, that’s all.”

Shanon turns back to her cat and runs her hand along his grey fur. “I don’t know if anyone does. He likes to keep to himself, that’s for sure.” She pauses for a moment, looking as if she’s lost in her own thoughts. “His eyes are always a bit sad, though, aren’t they?” 

When Jaskier thinks about Geralt’s dark eyes, he always focused on how it seemed as if there was something _wrong_ with them. Not physically—no, they were fine—but they just weren’t...as they should be. Somehow. He couldn’t explain it. 

He never realized before now that Shanon was right. 

Still, Jaskier plans his days around avoiding Geralt in the kitchen. Sad as the other man might be, Jaskier can’t take getting roped into another car ride. Not that Geralt would be likely to offer, anyway.

* * *

In early February, Paul, the owner of the White Wolf, rings the house again. “I’ve got an opening,” he says, “if you’re interested.”

“Absolutely.” 

At the end of the week, he’s back up on stage at the dingy, half-full bar. He’s the opening act, again, but at least this time he’s not only here to replace an act that dropped out. 

This time, he plays with more confidence. He straightens his back and holds his head up. He lets the smile come into his face. He takes all the nerves that swarm in his stomach and pulls them into excitement and energy. 

The crowd nods along, bobbing their heads to his songs. Jaskier runs from song to song in a smooth and practiced set. His music isn’t _amazing—_ he can admit that much without hurting his ego—and he still has a long way to go. He’s not redefining music. But he pours a little more heart into his songs. A little more of himself. All the real things he’s felt over the last few months. 

When he looks out, over the lights and into the thin crowd, he searches for a face. He looks for a certain head of grey hair. 

He doesn’t find it. 

* * *

The semester drags on. Every week is somehow the longest time has ever felt, but midterms still manage to sneak up on Jaskier. 

He calls up the one person he knows he can count on to save him. “Judy,” he says over the phone, his voice frazzled as his hair. “I need your help.”

A few hours later, they’re in the library together, pouring over books and catching up in between chapters. Truthfully, he hadn’t seen her nearly as much as he would’ve liked this semester. Their plans to go to the pier and explore downtown, and even just go for ice cream all fizzled out once class started. Now that they didn’t have a class together either, they’d scarcely seen each other over the last six weeks. 

“It’s all connected, just remember it that way, Jaskier,” Judy says. Her black hair is longer than when they first met and she’s pinned it back to show off a pair of golden hoop earrings. “Cause and effect. History is just people making decisions and other people reacting to those decisions.” 

Jaskier rests his forehead on the wooden library table. “I know, but why don’t people ever make choices that make sense?” 

“Because there’s no fun in smart choices,” Judy says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “No good stories, either.” 

Jaskier finds he can’t argue with that. 

* * *

He not only passes his midterms, in the end, but he also walks away with top marks. 

“I owe you, Jud,” he says and wraps the phone’s cord around his finger. Out of his bedroom window, he can see the sun sinking below the hills in a pool of orange. In the carport, the Valiant is missing. It has been for two days now. 

“I know,” she replies. “You could take me to dinner.”

Jaskier sits on his bed and blanks. Every little arm touch and smile and conversation he’s had with Judy floods back into his head. How had he missed the signs? Usually, he prided himself on being so in tune with this sort of thing. 

“Unless you don’t want to…” Judy says. She’s giving him an out; she’s not entirely sure about this either, he guesses. 

“No, no. Um, dinner sounds good. Perfect, actually. How about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow rolls into today, and Jaskier puts on the best outfit he can find. He needs to look put together, but still cool. Like he cares, but not too much. 

“Oh, fuck me,” he whispers to himself in the mirror and flattens his hair. He hopes a pair of jeans and a turtleneck are good enough. 

When he arrives at the door to Judy’s apartment, flowers in hand, she smiles at him. “You look great,” she says. Before he returns the compliment, Jaskier lets himself relax, if only a little. _Come on,_ he tells himself, _have a little confidence._

Dinner with Judy goes well. They cozy up next to each other at a Chinese food place not far from campus—the one with red paper lanterns and a warm, oaky smell, and air that hangs heavy with the heat from the bustling kitchen.

At first, they’re both a little nervous. A little awkward. Their conversations fizzle out as they try to navigate away from friendship into new waters. After a few beers, though, their conversation flows freely. 

As they finish off their plates, Judy leans back in the booth. Her white blouse swoops low and hugs her body. She’s shining, really, from her warm skin to her eyes which seem to be ten different shades of brown all woven together. “Do you want to get a drink?” she asks. Her mouth curls in a smile. 

At the bar, they dance. It’s crowded and much too warm, and Jaskier’s head feels as though it’s running a little slower than his body. He often feels this way, though. He loses himself in the music and the beat; he shuffles with the music even though he’s never been the greatest dancer. 

Judy leans in and cups his face. Her touch is gentle and warm and in her eyes, there’s fire. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispers.

Her words send a tingle down Jaskier’s spine. “If you want to,” he says.

“Of course, I do.” She pulls him close and he finds her lips. Their noses bump together. 

  
  


In the morning, they wake tangled together. 

Judy looks at him, her eyes a little wide. 

He unwraps himself from her in an awkward fumble and pulls his jeans back on. 

“Look, Jaskier,” Judy starts off.

“You don’t have to say it,” he says. 

Judy bites her lip. “Well, I’m going to anyway: I think we might be better off as friends.”

Jaskier lets out a small sigh of relief. “I agree.” Judy is beautiful and smart and funny and warm, but they’re not right for each other. There’s no spark beyond their friendship.

“I’ll see you in the library sometime?”

She nods. “That’d be nice.”

He gets back to his place just before noon. He enters quietly, hoping to slip upstairs without a scene. 

“You weren’t here last night,” Geralt says from the couch. He’s got a book in his hands, but he’s not reading it.

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “I’m surprised you even noticed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Is he serious? Jaskier scoffs. “It’s not like you’re here most nights either.”

Geralt tosses his book on the coffee table and rests his hands on his legs. “Look,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.” 

“I’m fine, okay?” Jaskier smirks. “In fact, I’m more than fine. I spent last night with a _friend.”_

For the first time in the months since he’s met Geralt, that gets a rise out of him. His pale cheeks flush and hold a tinge of red. He casts his eyes down at the shag carpet and he presses his lips into a line. Without saying anything, he leans forward and picks up his book again. The page he opens too is much earlier than where he’d been before, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Feeling a little smug, Jaskier turns and climbs the stairs. At the top, he resists the urge to glance back down to see Geralt’s reaction. The more he gets to know the man, the less understands him. Why should he care about what Jaskier gets up to at night?

* * *

On the weekend, Jaskier ditches his English homework and heads to Sunrise Records. He browses the boxes of used vinyl but doesn’t find anything that catches his eye. He runs his hand through his hair but stops before he tugs it all out. Lately, he feels as if there’s a chunk of rock sitting in his head. Whenever he tries to get creative, he can’t. Lyrics won’t come to him. The last rhythm he thought he’d writing turned out to be a cheap knock-off of _Good Vibrations._ He can’t even find a song that lights the spark inside his head. 

He tells as much to Sam, the owner.

Sam chuckles and nods along. “It happens to the best of us,” he says. “You get stuck in a slump.”

Slump, Jaskier thinks, is exactly the right word for it. Everything in his head is mush. None of it moves. Hell, he’d even take it one step further—everything about his life in Los Angeles is a slump. It’s not moving anywhere. Even when he tries to muster up the energy to give it a push, it just shakes and stays in the same place. 

“Some people say you need time to get out of a slump,” Sam says. “Sit by the beach. Walk through the woods. You know—that kind of thing. Basically just wait for creativity to strike.”

Jaskier nods. He’s heard that too. He’s even felt that too. Sometimes, a line or a chord will resonate in his head. Even a certain trick of the light or curl of a wave can spark the energy if the time is right. 

But the time hasn’t been right for a while. 

“The truth,” Sam continues, “is that that advice is bullshit.”

Jaskier hesitates. “Really?”

Sam nods and his shaggy hair bobs with his head. “You could spend your whole life waiting for lightning to strike and never be in the right place. Maybe—and that’s a maybe—you might get lucky once.”

Jaskier drums his fingers against the countertop. “Sure.” It makes sense, he’ll admit. “But where does that leave me?”

Sam chuckles warmly. “If you want lightning to strike you, dude, you don’t just wait for a rainstorm. You gotta find yourself a metal pole.”

* * *

Jaskier doesn’t find a metal pole, but he does find a notebook. He takes it with him everywhere: on the bus, to the beach, on campus. He leaves it on his nightstand and scrawls his morning thoughts on the pages. He writes about the way the waves shimmer in the sun and the way the sand brushes over his feet. He writes about the grass on campus and the hummingbird that occasionally dances in the flowers next to the arts building. He writes about New York. He writes about how much he hates the city and misses it all at the same time and sometimes he thinks he’s the only one who’s ever gotten himself into such a tangled mess of emotions but he knows can’t be the only one who’s ever felt this way when he listens to other musicians. He writes about the odd emptiness inside his core and he writes about how he aches for adventure. He writes about Judy and the lingering awkwardness between them. He writes until the words flow and jump from his head. The melodies come along after. 

Sam was right about inspiration (as he is about many things). Inspiration, Jaskier decides, isn’t something he can sit around and wait for. If he does, it might never strike. 

Sometimes it isn’t until he’s pages into his notebook that he finds his flow. But when he does, it’s as if the whole world shifts into focus. He can cut the shit pages away and work his songs until they’re something he’s proud to show off, not just something to sing. 

On a whim, he calls up Paul at the White Wolf. Jaskier tells him he’s got new songs. Good ones. 

“Fine,” Paul says over the phone. “You can come and show me, and if—that’s _if_ —I like them, I can bump you up in the line-up.”

In the end, Jaskier secures his place as the second act for a Saturday night show in a few weeks. 

He grins like wild as he walks home that night, his guitar over his back and his notebook tucked into his jacket pocket. He’s ready to make some waves. 

* * *

School goes about how he expected. Jaskier does enjoy it—really, he does. It’s always been an interest for him, but it’s not (as some assume) parallel to his music. He sees it as one in the same. 

How can he know where he stands without knowing what chain of events lead up to him? History, as Judy said, is just a chain of people making decisions: some good, some bad, some selfish, some foolish. 

There’s a certain flow of it all that’s comforting. Some find it horrifying the way that history rolls over and repeats itself. But to Jaskier, it proves that people are people, no matter what time they’re in. Compared to the scale of grand events, they’re all really quite small. The world will keep on happening, with or without him. 

So, when his father calls him up, Jaskier tries not to fight him too much. He was born in a certain time and came away with a certain way of doing things. Even if it frustrates Jaskier more often than not, he tried to level with him. 

“You’re coming home this summer,” his father says one day. It wasn’t a question. 

Jaskier bites his tongue. How did his father know that he didn’t find a summer job in LA? Not that he did, but he could’ve. 

In the end, Jaskier says only, “yes.”

“Good.” 

Jaskier can practically hear him nod over the phone. “Yeah.”

“There’s a job open, at the office. Mostly filing, but it would give you the sense of how a law office runs.”

Jaskier holds in a sigh. “I’ll think about, okay? It’s a little outside my area of expertise. I was thinking I might apply at a museum, or maybe an archive—“

“It starts on the 1st of May,” his father continues. “And pays well, of course. It’s great experience and it’ll prepare you for law school.”

 _Ah_. There it is. The insistence that Los Angeles is only a phase drives Jaskier up the wall. His parents act like one day Jaskier will wake up, set down his guitar, slap on a suit, and be the perfect professional they’d dreamed he would be. 

Even if Jaskier still feels all sorts of ways about Los Angeles, he’d never work on Wall Street. But there’s no point having that fight now. He’ll just have to have it again, anyway. 

Jaskier pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’ll think about it. Alright?”

* * *

The night he’s set to play at the White Wolf, his nerves start to get the better of him. The first act plays and he pounds back a beer, and then another. He bounces his foot up and down and tries not to let his anxiety drown him. The bar is more full than he’s ever seen it, and more and more people are filtering in. Even his final exams, which are coming up in a week, seem more distant than ever. 

He takes a steadying breath. The first act only has a few songs left. He should head backstage. Now. Probably. 

Or maybe after one more shot. 

Jaskier winds his way through the crowd towards the bar and orders a shot of vodka. He’s not a fan, usually, but there’s a reason liquor is called liquid courage. He doesn’t need to be completely soused to distract himself from his nerves. In fact, it would probably be very bad if he got up on stage so sloshed that he couldn’t even remember the lyrics to his own songs. 

As he pounds back the liquor, he tries to ignore both the burning in his throat and the memory of the dream he had, once, where he did forget every single word to every single song in his set. 

He wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve and presses the heels of his palms over his eyes. Why was he so nervous? It didn’t make sense. He’d played here before. It would all be fine, he told himself. Just fine. 

As Jaskier turns toward backstage, he freezes. In the middle of the crowd is Geralt. He’s just standing there—tall and muscular and so casually pretty that Jaskier could scream. The low lights darken his features, but the glow from the stage casts shadows over the lines of his cheekbones. More than anything, what startles Jaskier is the fact that the grey-haired man has his gaze fixed on Jaskier. When their eyes meet, Geralt dips his chin and, with a roll of his shoulder, pushes his way through the crowd towards the emergency exit at the side of the bar. 

“Hey,” Jaskier calls. His head isn’t fuzzy, but his nerves are frayed. “Wait!”

Geralt doesn’t wait. He slips out the door, into the alley next to the bar. 

Jaskier glances at his watch. He still has nearly twenty minutes before he’s due to start. “Fuck it.” He weaves through the crowd, slipping past the dancing patrons who don’t seem to mind the odd jostle. Even if they did, it’s too dark for them to ever see his face. When he slips through the emergancy exit, the night air hits him like a wave. It’s cool, for LA, and it feels even moreso when he compares it to the oppressing warmth of the White Wolf. He sucks in a breath—the air sobers him up. A gust of wind ripples through the alley and sends his hair in every direction. 

At the end of the alley, Geralt stands with his head cocked down a turn, as if he’s listening for something. As Jaskier steps forward, Geralt whips around. “What are you doing here,” he bites. His storms forward and yanks the front of Jaskier’s t-shirt up in his hand. Geralt’s face knits into a steel line. 

Jaskier stumbles to find his footing. It wasn’t that Geralt purposely knocked him off balance, but he hadn’t expected for him to come close at all. Jaskier pushes his hands forward and tries to knock Geralt back. The man doesn’t budge—he’s built like a tree. Or a brick wall. Or any other number of dense things. Instead, Jaskier switches to his words. 

“What am I doing here?” Jaskier spits back. “You’re the one who claimed you didn’t like music but are now showing up for my second show!”

“Hmm.” Geralt’s dark eyes appraise Jaskier. “Didn’t know you’d be here the first time.” He lets go of the bundle of Jaskier’s shirt and steps back. “But you need to leave. Alright? You can’t be here.”

“Oh what, I’m just supposed to take your word and leave you in a strange alley?”

“Yes.” Geralt cranes his head over his shoulder. “Just for once in your damn life, listen and _go._ ” He shoves Jaskier back. It’s not meant to be hard, but it’s enough to make Jaskier’s step falter and catch himself of his own feet. 

“Fuck,” Jaskier swears as he trips backward and hits the asphalt. Dull, stinging pain radiates from his palms, which he threw back to catch himself. He’s on the alley floor, outside a strange bar in LA, with fucked up hands and a set to play that’s only minutes away. His head and heart pound and all the courage the drinks gave him wells up in his chest. “What the hell is your problem?” Jaskier bites his lip. “I guess having a normal housemate would be too much to ask. No, no—I get lucky enough to have the asshole who _doesn’t like music_ and ignores my existence, and leaves at the weirdest hours and comes back in the dead of night half-covered in fucking blood!”

Geralt blinks. “I don’t ignore your existence.”

“Ohh, I’m so sorry,” Jaskier says, his voice dripping in sarcasm. “You see, I might be a bit confused by the fact we’ve barely had three conversations this entire goddamn year!” 

“I—” Geralt starts, but he cuts himself off. The steeled, defensive look on his face slides into pale fear. “Get away!” he calls and waves Jaskier back. “NOW.”

The ground vibrates. A deep, feral noise sounds from around the corner in the alley. Like an injured animal. Jaskier pushes himself to his feet and wipes his scrapped palms on his jeans. “Geralt?” he whispers. 

Geralt doesn’t run away. The idiot sprints forward, toward the noise. 

“Geralt!” Jaskier doesn’t know what to do. Every instinct still left in his city-boy self screams at him to run. To put as much space between himself and the noise as possible. And yet, somehow, he can’t bring himself to leave his fucking housemate alone in this alley. His feet freeze; his legs lock up. 

With a crash, the thing that made the noise rounds the corner. A giant, dark leg collides with the opposite building. An explosive cloud of brick rains over the pavement. Jaskier throws up his arms to shield his face and squeezes his eyes to avoid the dust. 

“Get back!” 

Jaskier peels an eye open to see Geralt running again. But it’s not just Geralt in the alley. The giant, dark leg wasn’t just a leg. It’s connected to a giant, dark _thing_ which Jaskier can only find one word to describe: a monster. The kind from legends. It’s almost spidery, with a mess of spindly legs, but its face is dark and uncanny, caught somewhere between the human and the not. And—more than anything—it’s barreling toward him. 

“JAS,” Geralt yells. 

Before Jaskier can react, the weight of the other man collides into his side and the momentum sends them both careening across the pavement. Jaskier’s head smacks into a dumpster and a dull thud echos in his ear. Pain blossoms from his temple, and he’s certain it’s not the liquor that’s making the world spin like this. His body aches with movement and he tries to press his hand against the ache. Jaskier blinks. The world around him is slow. Like everything is moving through molasses. 

Next to him, Geralt springs to his feet. His movements are smooth and well-rehearsed. He’s impossibly light on his feet for his size. With the grace of a dancer, he spins. He reaches inside his coat and brandishes something silver. Geralt’s legs flex and he leaps forward, toward the monster.

It’s too dark for Jaskier to see the entirety of what goes down. The monster lets out another shriek that rattles Jaskier’s teeth. Geralt spins again and slashes at the thing with what must be some sort of knife. When one of the monster’s limbs connects with Geralt’s jaw, he rolls it off and slides under the belly. With one fluid motion, he thrust his knife up and buries it deep in the gut of the beast. It moans in pain—feral and guttural. 

Jaskier clamps his hands over his ears. He can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away. 

Geralt doesn’t leave his knife stuck in the monster’s stomach. He yanks it forward, carving a line on its underbelly. When he finally does pull back, the thing slumps forward, its entrails spilling out underneath. 

The scent is so putrid Jaskier could vomit. It stings his nose and catches in his throat. He tries to catch his breath, but he’s breathing too fast. His air is all at the top of his chest. His heart is thundering so loudly he can hear it rumble. 

Geralt moves toward Jaskier with his hands up in surrender. He treads carefully as if Jaskier were an injured animal. 

“What was that?” Jaskier whispers. 

Geralt stands at a distance. He looks feral too, covered in dark blood. His normally neat hair sticks out in every direction. “It was a monster,” he says, “a Kikimora, to be specific. A young one.” 

Jaskier nods because there’s really no answer he could give that would make any of this any better. There’s no way that thing could be real, but there’s no way his pain could be fake. He swallows. His spit tastes coppery. He must’ve bitten his tongue. Numbly, he reaches up toward his mouth. When he pulls his hand away, the tips of his fingers are light red. 

Jaskier looks at Geralt. He takes him in, fully. In the din of night, he looks different. Angrier. More powerful. “And,” he says, unable to catch his breath, “what are you?”

Geralt steps close to Jaskier, his hands still up but his eyes closed. The streetlight illuminates his face. His pale skin is tinged with dirt and sweat. “I’m a Witcher,” he says. 

When Geralt opens his eyes, they aren’t dark, as they had been before. 

His eyes _glow—_ a splendid and deadly shade of warm yellow. 


	5. Both Sides Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title comes from the Joni Mitchell song :)
> 
> Huge thank you to everyone who has left comments on this!! The comments really motivate me to get my butt in gear and write faster. I'm having a lot of fun with this fic.

**Summer**

**1966**

Jaskier likes to keep an open mind. He tries not to judge or to make assumptions. It’s the best way to approach the world, in his opinion. When you jump to a certain end (whatever that end might be) you tend to miss out on everything else in front of you. 

But, when Jaskier watched his housemate take down a monster and proclaim that he was a  _ Witcher _ and his eyes glowed yellow, Jaskier assumed his life would change. 

It did not. 

And now Jaskier is sitting in his father’s office in New York, wearing a suit that was much too warm for the muggy summer heat that settled over the city, wondering when he lost his mind. It might’ve been when he’s head collided with the concrete. When he brushes his fingers against his scalp, he can feel a light raised scar, no bigger than his fingernail. If that wasn’t there, he would be certain he’d cracked entirely.

Geralt acted like it never happened. It drove Jaskier more than a little mad. Back in the alley, he wanted only to follow Geralt, to let all his burning questions pour out and get satisfying answers for every single one of them. 

Instead, Geralt brushed himself off and grunted, “you should leave,” at Jaskier. 

Jaskier protested he couldn’t possibly leave. Somehow, in his daze of confusion, he ended up in the back of a cab and arrived at Shanon’s house. He missed his set. His head ached and throbbed and Shanon was certain he’d been mugged. He didn’t correct her—how could he explain what really happened?

Instead, he cleaned himself off and waited by his window for that blue Valiant to pull into the carport. 

It never came. 

Not that night. Not the day after that. Not even well into the next week.

So Jaskier finally asked Shanon.

“Oh!” she said, putting her hand to her mouth. “I thought he said he told you?”

Jaskier shook his head. 

Shanon’s eyes cast down. “Geralt said he had a family emergancy. Had to head back to Ohio—at least, I’m fairly certain it was Ohio—as soon as he could.”

The only answer Jaskier could muster was “oh.”

So, here he is, back in New York, questioning his sanity every time his mind so much as slightly drifted off. On the subway, he often wondered if something would crawl out of the tunnels. Or maybe a creature would worm its way out of the Hudson. Or slither in from upstate. 

The (unfortunate) truth is that the monsters were actually the least of his worries.

What worries him more is the fact that there was so much more to the world than he knew. He’d glimpsed only a moment of it. He wanted to see all of it. 

But for now, he sits somewhere in between his known world and Geralt’s unknown world. And he really doesn't know where he fits into either of them. 

* * *

There were precisely two good things about New York. The first was the library. The second was Stella. Every few days, he’d switch the order of those two things. 

* * *

One day, after work, he takes Stella to the Met. It was a good choice, he thinks. The building itself is beautiful and the art and culture it houses is nearly unparalleled around the world. As a kid, his mother would sometimes spring him free from school for the day and they’d wander the halls together, staring at the art and gawking at ornaments. Then, at lunch, they’d eat outside of the statue hall. It felt like a dozen old worlds were smashed into one in a single moment of time. 

With his mother, Jaskier didn’t really listen. He’d take in the colours and swirls and faces, but he didn’t really  _ get  _ it. Not in the way his mother did. But his mother mostly appraised the work with her mouth pressed into a straight line, only leaning into his ear to whisper a detail if she felt it was absolutely necessary. 

With Stella, everything is different. She can’t stop talking about the works. “Oh, oh! This one,” she says, pointing at a painting, “this is ‘Bullfighting in a Divided Ring’. It’s a Goya—you can tell he used his fingers to apply the paint—but the colour is a bit unusual, for him. Usually, he paints much darker scenes…”

Jaskier sticks his hands in his pockets and smiles at her. 

Stella glows with enthusiasm. It’s impossible to feel this place is dull in any sense with her around. Even if he doesn’t understand it all, he loves watching the plains of her face light up in each hall. 

Eventually, they make their way to the medieval collection. Jaskier’s favourite. 

Stella raises an eyebrow at him. Her boots click against the tile as they walk.

“What?”

“It’s just the medieval collection is an unusual choice… I mean, it’s hardly the most aesthetically pleasing—” she points at one painting of a baby that looks more like a shrunken eighty-year-old man.

Jaskier shrugs. “There’s something so...so grand about it all. I mean, here people were, toiling in fields, living without running water or health care, most not even able to read and write, but what did they do? They made art.” He breaths out and stares up at the high, domed ceiling. He could almost believe he was in a medieval abbey. “And the people who couldn’t make it still loved it. Appreciated it. It’s kind of groovy, don’t you think?”

Stella smiles warmly. “You’re not wrong.”

Jaskier wraps his hand around his and squeezes. “Besides, it’s all awfully romantic. Knights and ladies. Courtly love and honour and chivalry. Epic quests.”

“I seem to remember most of the old stories involved more than a fair deal of death, adultery, and deceit.” 

“Hmm. Maybe. But wouldn’t you love to be a princess?”

Stella rolls her eyes slightly. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be a princess. Everyone waxes about how romantic it would be, but I’d just end up married off to some distant land to secure a political alliance.”

“Then who would be?”

She sighs thoughtfully. “I’d want to be someone with some power of my own. Like a countess.” She walks ahead of Jaskier, pulling him along by his hand. “And how about you? A dashing Sir Pankratz?”

Jaskier snorts. “I’d be a bard,” he says without thinking. “Just roaming the countryside, singing and drinking and living freely.”

“So you like the medieval era because of the great courtly romance, but you’d never want to take part in any of it?”

“I never said that—I just wouldn’t want to be a knight. Or a king. Or some boring old advisor. I like my freedom, thank you.”

Stella smirks. “I’m sure courts always needed a jester.”

“Hey!” Jaskier protests in mock indignation, before Stella pulls him along back into American Art. 

* * *

He loves the library in New York. It’s one of the best and most underrated things about the city. 

Some days, he tells Stella he has to stay late at the office. He tells his dad he’s taking Stella out after work. And then he goes to the library. 

The old arches and stacks of books and chandeliers make him feel like he’s gone back to the past. Or at least to Europe, maybe. It’s a brilliant way to escape. 

Over the course of the summer, he pulls book by book about mythology off the shelves. Some he finds useful—they give him old legend and myths and descriptions of monsters. Others aren’t as much—they offer more theoretical takes on what the monsters  _ mean _ to the people. Intellectually, that piques his curiosity, but he puts a pin in those books. He needs to know what to look for and where to look for them. Everything else? That’s just extra. 

After a few weeks of slipping to the library in all the spare moments he can find, the librarian starts to recognize him. She’s about his mother’s age, with thick dark hair, a Roman nose, and a toothy but warm smile. 

“You know, dear,” she says to him one day in early June, “I can help you find something. It’s my job.”

Jaskier blushes. He hadn’t thought anyone had noticed him. 

It takes him another two weeks of fruitless search before he speaks to her. “I’m doing a research project,” he lies, even though it’s probably unnecessary. “And there’s this old legend I’m trying to track down, it’s about something called a Witcher?”

The librarian—Ruth, the plate on her desk reads—smiles. “I haven’t had anyone asking about that in a long time.” She pauses and flips through a record book. “I do have something I can show you, but it’s in the rare books collection, so it can’t leave the temperature-controlled section, but you can read it here.” 

Jaskier nods and follows her through the rows of books. Finally, he might have a lead. A way to access that world he caught a glimpse of. 

Ruth unlocks an old wooden door. It’s much cooler than the rest of the building, and there’s only three others sitting around a grand table in silence. At a small desk is another librarian, deep in some old record. 

“Bag stays at the desk and you can read there,” Ruth instructs and points to the table. “I’ll be right back.”

And, true to her word, she doesn’t disappear for more than a few minutes. When she returns, she’s holding a thick tome with yellowed edges. 

“You’re lucky I specialized in Medieval Literature,” Ruth says as she hands him the book. “Or maybe it’s not luck, because I always noticed you browsing that section. Maybe we can call it fate. But whatever you want to call it, there’s not many here who would know about the Witchers.”

Jaskier’s head bobs as he nods. Ruth’s roundabout way of speaking makes his head ache as he tries to follow what she means. 

“The Witcher is an old legend, likely from Eastern Europe, that made its way to the West over time. It was likely an oral tradition that someone transcribed when it reached England. Not much is known about the original versions of the story. Well, I’ve heard a colleague say there are some rumours that a manuscript they found in France might contain an older version, but we can’t be certain. These stories don’t belong to one person—not anymore. They belong to the culture.” Ruth looks down her nose at Jaskier. “And they must be preserved.”

He’s not sure if that’s a threat against his life if he damages the book or a call to spread the word. 

“This manuscript isn’t very rare, I’m afraid. Most of the work in there has already been gathered in larger, more famous collections. It’s not just about the Witcher—the Witcher is only a small part, actually. It’s a compilation of different legends and songs and poems. Probably all of different origins. But the Witcher songs are one of the more obscure elements.”

“Songs?” Jaskier can’t help it. 

Ruth nods. “Yes, yes. Old songs. Played in taverns and the like. Some warn of monsters, others warn of foul fate if you don’t pay the Witcher.”

Jaskier cracks a grin. This is what he’d spent the last few months looking for. 

“You can ask Lorena at the desk if you need anything. Give her the book to reshelve when you’re done. I’ve got to get back to my desk.”

Jaskier feels as if he could sing himself when he opens the book. He leans back in the wooden chair, making himself comfortable for the hours ahead. This... this could explain everything. Even just knowing that Witchers are  _ real _ eases some of the quiet anxiety in his chest. And the more he knows—

Jaskier stops when he opens the book. He turns it around and blinks and rubs at his eyes. For a second, he swears he’s having a stroke. The words are English, but they’re, well, also  _ not _ English. If that makes sense. 

He wildly (or as wildly as he can while still being gentle) flips through the pages of the manuscript. 

It’s Old English. He flops back against the chair. “Fuck.”

Across the room, a young woman glares. 

Jaskier asks Lorena, at the desk about it. 

The woman blinks at him. “Of course it’s in Old English. We’re Special Collections. What did you expect?”

Jaskier can’t say he knows.

* * *

The summer drifts by faster than he likes. He files papers at his father’s office. He goes to the library when he can and works on translating the pages of the manuscript. It’s a hellish job. English has more characters, like the thorn and the eth and he doesn’t understand it very well. He tried to ask Ruth more about it once, but she only pointed him in the direction of another book about Old to Middle English.

He takes long walks with Stella through Central Park and takes her to the Met as much as she pleases and buys her dinner and ice cream. She tells him about how she’s going to Columbia, come fall. Her mother wants her to be a politician and her father wants her to be a lawyer but Stella mostly just wants to be an art historian. 

Jaskier gets it. He really does. One night, as they sit together on the pier at Cooney Island, he raises his Coca-Cola bottle to her. “Here’s to our futures,” he says. 

Stella clinks the glass and sips. Her nose wrinkles. “Next time, we need something stronger.” When he kisses her, her lips taste sweet and her hair is soft under his palm. 

He likes Stella. He might even love her. When they’re together, something in his heart flutters and the only way to quiet it again is to write all the swirling thoughts in his head out in songs.

But mostly, Jaskier thinks of LA. He thinks of the room waiting for him when he gets back. He thinks about Shanon, a lot. She’d get along well with Stella. 

He thinks about Geralt. 

When Jaskier closes his eyes at night, he sees the yellow glow of his eyes. 

The secret world of Geralt claws at Jaskier’s chest. If he doesn’t learn the truth soon, he’s certain it will hollow him out and leave him as a shell of his former self. 


	6. Last Train to Clarksville

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a song by the Monkees! Also it's the one Jaskier listens to in the car :)

**Year 2, Semester 1**

**1966**

On the flight back to LA, Jaskier is just as full of nerves as he was this time last year. Of course, now it’s mostly for an entirely different reason. He can’t decide what would be worse--having to face Geralt or finding out the other man had packed his bags and skipped town. Jaskier sank back into the airplane seat with a sigh. A steady stream of processed air washes over his face and his skin feels tight and dry as if it’ll crack apart if he smiles or frowns too deeply. 

He pushes back his hair (it’s gotten a little longer than he usually wears it, but he kinda likes it better this way) and stares out the window at the blindingly blue sky above the cloud cover. Maybe things would be easier if he stayed in New York. Stella was there, and leaving her left him feeling dizzier than he expected. If in high school things had been as good as they were over the summer, he wonders if he would have ever left. The realization that he probably wouldn’t have lingers in his mind. Everything else aside, New York is… simpler than LA. Life there makes sense in a way that it just doesn’t in LA. Even without Geralt.

If only life were simple.

His parents seemed to have known what they wanted since they were young and stayed on a path until they got there. His old friends from high school had plans. Even Stella, who didn’t know  _ exactly  _ what she wanted still had at least an idea of the things she wanted out of life.

And what does Jaskier want? Music is the only answer he can give with any sort of certainty. He’d even be so bold as to throw ‘adventure’ in there too, but even that prospect isn’t as exciting as it once was. In truth, adventure is quite lonely. His grand desires aren’t exactly compatible with settling down. And, more often than not, he feels the brunt of that dilemma in his chest. 

If only life were simple.

But where’s the fun in that?

* * *

When he gets to the house, Shanon welcomes him with open arms. 

“It’s so wonderful to have you back, dear,” she says as she pulls him into a hug, pinning Jaskier’s arms against his body with his suitcase in hand. “The border in your room over the summer was the most dreary man I ever met. Last time I let a business student stay here, I’ll tell you that. When I told him I was a painter, do you wanna know what he asked me? How I made a living off that!”

Jaskier gives her a grim smile and nods along as she rants, but his mind wanders upstairs. 

Shanon squeezes his arm. “But enough about all that. You must be tired after coming all the way from New York. We can catch up in the morning.”

She is right, Jaskier realizes. She usually is right, anyway, but Jaskier hadn’t realized how tired he was. He’d meant to try and catch a few winks of sleep on the plane, but between the cheap coffee he chugged down and his gnawing anxiety, he hadn’t managed to drift off. 

Of course, when he reaches the top of the staircase, he finds himself face-to-face with the problem that kept him up in the first place. 

Geralt stands in the hall, wearing a pair of plaid pyjama pants and a white t-shirt. His hair is still grey and just as short as he’d kept it last year, but at the moment it’s loose and wild and clearly hasn’t been combed. His eyes, though, are back to the dark brown they’d been most of last year. If the wrongness of the colour had annoyed Jaskier before, the strangeness had only magnified since he’d seen those eyes glowing like a cat’s. 

“Hi,” Jaskier says. He’s rooted to the spot; he can’t move. He doesn’t have the energy to set down his suitcase, let alone to play it all cool and pretend that everything that happened last spring hasn’t been burning him up inside. 

“Hi.” Geralt’s adam’s apple bobs. He moves forward, gaze down, to his bedroom. 

“Aren’t we going to talk about what happened?”

“No.”

Jaskier drops his suitcase. The clatter rings through the hall. “You have to give me  _ something _ ,” he insists. “I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

At his door, Geralt pauses. “It’s best if you just let this go. It’s safer for you, this way,” he says. His fist flexes at his side. “For once in you life  _ listen to me. _ ”

And, with that, Geralt storms into his room and yanks the door shut behind him. 

Jaskier tries not to scream. 

* * *

As soon as he gets the chance, Jaskier slips down to the special collections section of the library. 

The young blonde woman at the desk gives him an appraising look from behind a pair of cat-eyed glasses. She seems annoyed to be pulled from her book. 

“Er, hi,” Jaskier starts, “I have a research project, and I’m looking for this book, but the thing is that it's kind of… uncommon? I think. Not rare, exactly, but it’s not in the normal collections either.”

“Fine,” the woman says in a bored tone, “what’s the title?”

“It’s the Berkshire Manuscript? It should have some songs in it…”

“I can’t lend that to you.” 

“Oh, I don’t need to take it out, or anything. I was just hoping to read it here?”

The woman rolls her eyes. “I don’t have it.”

_ Can you at least check?  _ Jaskier bites his tongue. 

“Some grad student came for it yesterday. It’s up in the History offices right now for some study. If you really wanted to look, I’m sure he could arrange an office hour.”

Jaskier lets out a childish huff. “This grad student--he didn’t have grey hair, by any chance, did he?” 

The woman raises her eyebrows and shoots Jaskier a look he takes to mean that his questions are actively draining her energy. “I can’t tell you who checked out what. The wrong people like to ask those questions too.” Her eyes dart side to side like she’s expecting to find the CIA behind a bookshelf. 

Jaskier gives her his best sad eyes. “Alright.”

She sighs and leans forward slightly. “But it seems like you already know the answer to your question, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jaskier admits, “I guess I do.”

Damn him, anyway.

* * *

In History 202, Jaskier sits next to Judy. Her hair is shorter now--or at least it looks shorter, but that might just be because she’s wearing it with her natural curls. 

“Hey Jaskier,” she says.

He settles into the desk next to her. “Have a good summer?”

She gives a half-shrug. “As good as it can get. You?”

“About the same. Of course, I’m glad to be back here to learn about--” he glances down at the syllabus-- “ _ The History of Economics in Pre-War Europe. _ ”

Judy smirks. “Excited for this?”

“Oh, for sure. You know me and my love of… Adam Smith and his invisible arm.”

“ _ Hand, _ Jaskier.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” 

Just chuckles. “First one to fall asleep in class owes the other a drink and a paper edit.”

“Deal.” 

* * *

He calls Stella, most nights. It’s easy to lose hours, just chatting with her about anything and everything. She’ll tell him about how the leaves are changing colour back in New York and he’ll tell her about the way the sun burns orange when it sets over the pacific. She’ll tell him about the ivy that climbs the sides of the buildings at Columbia and he’ll return a story about the new record he picked up. 

“I miss you,” she says one day. She sounds a little breathless like she just spat the words out without thinking. “A lot.” 

Jaskier presses his lips together. “I miss you too.” 

Stella isn’t his girlfriend, exactly. But she’s not  _ not _ his girlfriend, either. He thinks. Over the last summer, they’d tangled themselves together romantically and failed to define the exact nature of their relationship. He’s an idiot, Jaskier thinks, for not letting her know how much he cares. 

“It’s late,” she whispers, and it is late, because it’s late enough in LA and New York is three hours ahead. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Stella.”

The line hums and Jaskier sighs and wonders why he’s so bad at talking about all this when he feels so deeply. Shouldn’t it be easy? Shouldn’t he speak what’s on his mind?

Jaskier stirs and opens his window. The breeze does nothing to assuage his restlessness. So he picks up his pen and notebook and writes until his eyes ache and his fingers cramp. 

He might not be able to say these things he feels, but he can at least sing them. For now, he hopes, it’ll be enough.

* * *

And so the semester drags on. He goes to class. He writes papers and reads papers and edits papers and drowns in papers. His friendship with Judy eases into a comfortable sort of rapport, but they never cross the emotional line and dive into anything of substance. He goes to the record store when he has a rare free afternoon. It’s one of the best small joys in life, he thinks, to dip a needle onto vinyl and let the music well up and the world float away. 

He calls Stella. She calls him. She rambles about how wonderful Columbia is. How beautiful New York is when it’s dipped in the glaze of autumn. 

Los Angeles is still bitterly warm and smoggy. 

Geralt still avoids him and hogs the Berkshire Manuscript with the songs that Jaskier would really like to translate. 

Mostly, Jaskier is lonely. Again. He bites his lip and wonders why he thought this year would be any different. 

* * *

“I’m sorry, Jaskier, but I don’t have a slot for you,” Paul says at the White Wolf.

“Come on,” Jaskier pleads. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging. I was  _ injured _ .”

Paul crosses his arms. “Look, kid. I’ve been doing this for a while. I saw you pouring back those shots, alright? I can’t take a gamble on a musician who won’t show up for his set.”

“I’m asking for a second chance.”

“And I might give you one. But not now, okay?” He shakes his head. “Kid, I’ve seen this town chew up talent. Self-destruction might get you a few hit songs, but mostly it gets you killed.”

“I swear I’m not self-destructive,” he crosses his heart. “It was an accident, honest to god.”

“When was the last time you slept, kid?”

“Last night.”   
“When was the last time you slept for more than four hours?”

“I--”

“Four hours  _ in a row. _ ”

Jaskier grimaces. That’s an unfair question, in his opinion. 

Sam sighs; his frown softens. “Not now. Okay? Take care of yourself and ask me again in a few months.”

Jaskier takes a composed breath. “Fine,” he says. “Fine, fine.” He waves Paul off as he pushes his way back outside. He steadies himself against the bus stop.  _ Fuck.  _ His eyes sting and his head pounds and the scent of hot garbage floods his nose. 

It’s not fine, really. None of it is  _ fine. _

* * *

On a bright, warm Wednesday in late October, Jaskier walks into the administrative building on campus. “Is this where I come to apply for a transfer?” 

* * *

The rest of October races past in a blur of midterms and research papers and late-night phone calls. He tries to write songs, but they still aren’t coming out quite right. They’re almost there, almost glimpsing at the greatness he craves, and sometimes he thinks that’s even more frustrating than when they were utter shit. Because they’re not great. Not yet. And he doesn’t know how to take them there. 

* * *

November rolls around and brings a lighter, cooler breeze and more cloud and the flowers wilt and Jaskier digs his sherpa jacket out of the back of his closet. 

“It’s already snowed here,” Stella tells him on the phone that night. “Most of it melted already, so now the ground is just all slush, but still. I’m cold.”

Jaskier chuckles. “Maybe someday you’ll have to come out here and visit?”

“Hmm, maybe,” she says, her tone light and teasing, “but I could only ever visit. I absolutely  _ melt _ in the heat, I swear.”

“So you don’t like the heat and you don’t like the cold?”

“Exactly,” she says, dragging the words out. 

Jaskier laughs. 

As he shifts in his room and wraps the cord of the phone around his hand, his elation free-falls to the floor. It’s stupid, he thinks, but he misses the little things. Holding her hand. Not having to talk over the phone when they manage to line up their timing (and having to pay a small fortune for the long-distance calls). 

“Jaskier? You alright?” Stella asks.

“I’m fine,” he swears. “Really.”

* * *

After his English midterm, Jaskier cuts history to come home and nap. He deserves it, he thinks. And he leant Judy his notes last week, so she can return the favour.

When he opens the door to Shanon’s place, he expects it to be empty.

It’s not. 

Geralt stands in front of the kitchen table, hunched over a road map, tracing a route with a pen. His sock-covered foot taps against the tile. He looks up and his eyes freeze as if he’s been caught out. 

“Oh. You’re here,” Jaskier says, a little embarrassed he hadn’t even considered this fact.

“I thought you had class,” he says. 

“I do. I mean—I usually do. I, uh, skipped?”

Geralt snorts. “I’m not going to tell your prof.” He sets down the pen and places his palms on the table. 

“Well, thanks for that.” 

“You got mail today,” Geralt says, because apparently he’s unable to hold up any sort of banter. He jerks his chin towards a stack of letters on the other end of the table. “Something from Columbia.”

“Oh.” Jaskier picks up the envelope. He should tear it open. He should read it. He should do anything except set it back down with his hands shaking. The truth is that no matter what the letter says, it’s going to change his life next year. 

“Hmm.”

He sighs. “What?”

“Why is Columbia sending you letters?”

“Oh so you can ask me questions but I can’t ask you anything?”

“That’s not what I—“ he swallows. “Never mind.” He cocks his head down again and stares at the map. The tension in the room hangs between them, unbearable and awkward. 

“I applied for a transfer,” Jaskier spits out. 

Geralt’s head snaps up. His face falters. “Do you not like it here?”

“Does it look like I do?” Jaskier throws his hands to his side. “I’m miserable, okay? I—I had all these  _ plans _ and ideas and expectations! And then I came here, and nothing was the way I imagined it, and nothing is working out. So yeah, I guess you could say I ‘don’t like it here’.”

Geralt stays unnervingly still. “Jaskier—“

“Don’t—“ Jaskier holds up his hand— “just don’t. Alright? You’re the worst part of all this! You fucked with my head. I can’t even trust what I  _ see _ anymore. At least in New York life makes sense.” Jaskier shakes his head and turns, his face burning and his blood pounding. 

“Jaskier.” Geralt closes his eyes. His lips part and he takes a breath. After a moment, he slowly lifts his chin and his gaze until he meets Jaskier’s gaze. “Do you want to come on a road trip?”

Of all the things Jaskier expected him to say, that was very much not on the list. “ _ What _ ,” he says. 

“We’ll be back later tonight. I could use someone to help me navigate.”

“I—I don’t even know you. I can’t go on a freaking road trip with you. I have class.”

Twenty minutes later, Jaskier is packed into the passenger seat of Geralt’s blue Valiant, map sprawled open in front of him and the letter from Columbia on the kitchen table, unopened. Geralt rests his arm on the back of his seat as he twists to see out the window as he backs out of the carport and pulls off onto the road. Jaskier tries to pretend his heart doesn’t stutter. After all, it’s probably just ]the hum of the engine. 

* * *

“You owe me answers,” Jaskier says as they cruise further inland and breeze past the sign that marks the city limits. 

“We’re going to Twentynine Palms. A small town in the desert.”

Jaskier glances down to see a red circle in a sand-coloured square on the map. A red-pen line marks the route they need to follow, so at least Geralt did do a thorough job planning out the trip. But still. Jaskier huffs. “Believe it or not, that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

Geralt’s hand flexes against the wheel. “Fine. One question.”

“One question for every half hour of driving.”

“Hmm.” Geralt’s jaw tenses. “One question per trip.”

“One question  _ per hour _ . And music, then, to fill the silence.”

“Fine,” Geralt says. He drifts over a lane without shoulder checking. “The drive’s two and a half hours. So you get two and a half questions.”

Jaskier will take it. “So,” he says, “what  _ is  _ a Witcher?”

“A monster hunter,” Geralt answers easily. 

Jaskier supposes that much should have been obvious. Still, he reaches forward, flicks on the radio, and sinks back into the chair and the song. 

_ And I don't know if I'm ever coming home _

_ Take the last train to Clarksville _

_ Take the last train to Clarksville. _

* * *

When the hour rolls over, they’re coming up on the Coachella Valley. Jaskier cranks down the window and lets the dry air cascade over his skin and the warm sun heat his face. He stretches his arm out on the side and taps along to the beat of “Wild Thing”. 

“Alright, question two,” Jaskier says. “What’s with your eyes?”

Geralt hesitates. “What do you mean ‘what’s with my eyes’?”

Jaskier wags his finger. “Oh, nonono. I know what you’re trying to do—make me use up my questions. You know what I meant, anyway. So my question still stands.”

Geralt lets out a hum of annoyance. “Fine. It’s a…glamour. Just a small trick to hide their true colour.”

“So they’re really yellow then?”

“That’s another question.”

Jaskier sighs loudly and dramatically. “It’s your next left, by the way.”

* * *

The Valiant rattles along the uneven road as they weave their way into the desert. Jaskier is fairly certain there must be vultures circling overhead, even if he can’t see them. 

“It’s been another hour,” he announces. 

“Has it?”

“Oh, fuck off.” Jaskier crosses his arms. “I guess this is my question: why do you do it?”

Geralt’s lips quirk upward. “Because,” he says and smiles smugly. 

“That’s not a real answer.”

“You were only supposed to ask half a question,” he says. “So I gave you half an answer.”

* * *

When they reach Twentynine palms, the sun is setting. Swirls of purple and orange paint the sky; clusters of rocks cast shadows in their relief. The road here is empty, and Geralt has no qualms about blowing past both the rows of shops that line the main drag and the speed limit. 

“Where, pray tell, are we going? There’s not a lot of town here exactly and if we keep going at this pace we’ll miss it.”

“It’s not in town,” Geralt says. “It’s just outside of it.”

Jaskier glances down at the map. Just outside of the red circle is a dot in the desert that he’d ignored until now. Jaskier assumed it was a slip of the pen, but, apparently, it isn’t. “There’s no road there.”

“There’s not? I hadn’t noticed.”

_ Was that sarcasm?  _ Jaskier scratches his chin. He honestly can’t tell with Geralt--the man is impossible to read. He’s all furrowed brows and locked jaws and non-committal grunts. 

But Geralt pulls off the main stretch of road and onto a dirt path, so Jaskier assumes his quip  _ was _ sarcasm. He mentally adds it to the (very short) lists of facts he knows about his housemate: he is capable of sarcasm. And jokes in general. Interesting.

Jaskier’s teeth clatter together as Geralt floors it down the dirt road. A cloud of dust rises in the car’s wake and drifts across the desert before it dissipates in the pink dusk. 

Finally, Geralt pulls over. There’s nothing particularly special about this ditch. As far as Jaskier can tell, it’s identical to the miles before and, as far as he can see, it’s identical to the miles of road to come. 

Geralt shifts the car into park. “Stay inside,” he says. From his tone, it's very clear that this isn’t optional. “I won’t be gone for more than half an hour.”

“What the fuck do you have to do out here?”

Geralt cocks his head. “You’re out of questions.”

“Fine,” Jaskier says, rolling his eyes. “But if you dragged me into a drug deal or some shit, I’m telling Shanon.”

Geralt’s eyes flash playfully. “Come on, Jaskier. You’re smart enough to put two and two together.”

Two and two… “Oh.” Jaskier’s certain his eyes are the size of dinner plates. He tries to shrug it off, all nonchalant and cool, lest he looks like some over-eager kid. 

“Stay in the car.” Geralt slams the door behind him and goes to the trunk. 

When the trunk slams, Jaskier shifts to see Geralt walking out into the desert. Strapped to his back is an honest-to-god  _ sword. _

Jaskier does not stay in the car. 

* * *

At a distance, he stalks Geralt. They might be in a desert, but it’s not the Saraha--it’s not just dunes of rolling sand, but sand and dirt and piles of rock and hills and ragged little plants. It’s easy enough to hide and duck. Jaskier thinks he’s actually quite good at it. 

After a few minutes, Geralt disappears behind one of the large outcrops of rock on the land. Jaskier slinks around the other side of the keep and reaches to climb up the pile. He can get a clear view, he thinks, even if he doesn’t get to the very top. As he steps forward and starts to hoist himself up, his foot comes down on something with a sickening crunch. Jaskier shoots his eyes downward. A cold lump settles into his stomach. He stepped on a bone. A large one too, with a rounded joint on one end.

A femur.

Jaskier is far from a forensic expert, but he still remembers the time Mr. Evans showed his high school biology class an old slide of the human femur. The old teacher pointed out the rounded head, the ridges, but most of all, Mr. Evans pointed out the slope of the bone—the slope that made it possible for humans to walk upright. The slope that was unique to humans alone. The slope that Jaskier is most definitely staring at under his foot right now. 

_ Fuck.  _ He wonders if he should’ve stayed in the car. No—no. He shakes his head. If he turns around now, he’ll miss out on whatever it is that Geralt’s up to. In the end, his curiosity wins out over his fear and he reaches up, pulling himself to a landing on the rocks. He pushes himself flat, against the dust stone, and squints at the scene below him.

Geralt walks slow and keeps his body low, with most of his weight on his toes. It’s almost cat-like, Jaskier thinks, or at least animalistic in some way. It’s like he’s stalking his prey and--

Oh. Jaskier pinches his lips together. He  _ is  _ stalking prey. Of some description. A cool chill runs through his bones as Jaskier realizes that whatever Geralt is after is more likely than not the same creature who left the femur sitting on these rocks. 

Jaskier pulls himself into a small ball and tries to be as invisible as he can.

On the ground, Geralt moves softly. He reaches one arm back and unsheathes his sword. Again, he treads forward carefully, weapon in front of him and then he stops. Jaskier watches as Geralt’s weight rocks backward. Then he springs forward in a flurry of movement.

In the low light, Jaskier’s eyes can’t track what’s happening. He sees Geralt’s elbows pull back and his feet scuff against the dirt. He strikes his blade and lets out a groan of effort, before pulling back, ducking, and circling around whatever thing he’s fighting. The monster shrieks--a god-awful, grating noise that makes Jaskier clamp his hands over his ears. 

Jaskier tries to focus. Whatever monster Geralt’s fighting, it looks nothing like the monster in the alley, save the spindly limbs. This thing is much smaller, too. Only a bit bigger than Geralt. In the low light, Jaskier thinks he can see a bird-like beak on the monster as it snaps toward Geralt. As the beast turns, Jaskier gasps. The fucker has  _ wings. _

As he takes stock of the value of his life, fully preparing for it to end, the monster lets out a guttural moan. Pain. 

Jaskier’s eyes flit back down to see that Geralt landed a good strike. Black blood (or maybe it only seems black in the low-light, Jaskier can’t tell) spills down its side and pools in the dirt. Again, Geralt lifts his sword and swings it in a wide arc. The blade finds its mark on the monster’s neck.

Though he’s never considered himself to have a weak stomach, Jaskier thinks he might be sick. 

The beast’s head rolls on the ground. It’s body collapses in a heap, still twitching. 

_ Ohgodohgodohgod. _ Jaskier focuses on his breathing. In and out. The desert air smells dusty, but thankfully he can’t pick up any coppery notes. All he has to do is make his way back to the car and--

“I thought I told you to wait.”

Jaskier blinks up at Geralt. There are a few stray dark splatters on the side of his face, but his black t-shirt doesn’t show any. On his arm, a thin line mars his bicep. An angry red slash of a claw. His face is scrunched into a--not quite a scowl, but a frighteningly pissed-off glare. 

Jaskier gives him a weak smile. “I’m not very good at listening.”

* * *

In the car, Jaskier waits silently in the front seat while Geralt throws his sword back in the trunk. When he comes back, Jaskier realizes he’s taken care to wipe the blood off his brow and wind a strip of cloth around the cut on his arm. 

Now, the sun’s gone but the sky still holds a trace of inky light. A few stars have peaked out--bright and bold on this clear night. 

“So,” Jaskier starts.

Geralt turns the engine, throws it in drive, and pulls a u-turn back towards Twentynine Palms. “You’re not coming again if you can’t listen.”

“I was curious. If you’d told me what was happening, I would’ve stayed clear. Really, it’s your lack of communication to blame.”

“Hmm.” His nostrils flare.

“But we can talk about this later--” Jaskier waves his hand-- “but since we’re driving again, I think I get another question.”

“Fine.”

“Why are you like this?”

Geralt drums his fingers against the wheel. “Couldn’t tell you exactly.” He smiles, mostly to himself. “But I did have an ex tell me that the years I spent living on my own made me a ‘standoffish dick’, so to speak.” 

Jaskier opens his mouth and pauses for a beat. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then you should ask better questions. Think before you speak.”

“That ex might’ve been right, you know.”

“I’ve considered the possibility.” Geralt’s mouth stays turned up at the corners.

“Besides, why do you care about the way I ask my questions?” Jaskier says hotly. “What are you--a genie?”

“That’s another question,” Geralt points out. “And I think they prefer to be called ‘Djinn.”

* * *

“It’s been an hour.”

“So it has.”

“What makes you a Witcher?”

“It’s a mutation.”

“What, like the X-Men?”

“The X--no, Jaskier.”

“Are you sure? Cause they’re all mutants. And they’re superheroes too--off fighting villains and monsters. Sounds a bit like you.”

“If you compare me to the X-Men again, I’m leaving you on the side of the road.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. No X-Men comparisons. Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die.”

“Good.”

“But maybe there’s another superhero you’d rather be like? Batman? Sup--”

“Jaskier, I swear to all that is holy, I  _ will _ leave on the roadside.”

* * *

Just outside of LA, Jaskier's stomach growls. He clenches his fist to his gut and tries to make the rumbling stop, but nothing he does makes a difference. It’s nearly eleven and Jaskier hasn’t eaten since the quick lunch he had before his exam. Even then, he’d been too nervous to eat anything substantial. 

“You’re hungry,” Geralt says.

“It’s fine. We’ll be back at Shanon’s in another forty-five minutes and I’m sure she’s got some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Alright.”

They keep pressing on, down the highway, but when they reach the interchange, Geralt blows past and keeps going straight. 

“Um, Geralt? I think you missed the exit.”

Geralt doesn’t reply. 

“It’s my fault, really. I should’ve said something. I just assumed you knew, you know?”

Geralt says nothing. After a few silent minutes, he jerks the steering wheel and they pull off at an unmarked exit. 

Jaskier grips the side of the door as they swing around a turn. “I don’t think this connects back to our turn off,” he says. Even though he’s fairly certain he’s correct, he scrambles to find the map in the glove box.

“We’re not going home,” Geralt says. The Valiant slows down as he eases off the gas. “We’re going here.”

Geralt pulls in to a lot next to the road. Against the side of the hill, a 24-hour diner nestles, neon lights flashing. 

“You’re hungry,” Geralt says as he parks. “And this place has got the best burgers in town.”

* * *

Geralt wasn’t lying about the burgers. They’re sitting in a booth at the back of the diner, even though there are only a few other people speckled throughout the restaurant, it’s best that they’re out of earshot of the rest of them. Jaskier chomps at his burger--and  _ god _ it’s greasy and cheesy and delicious--before he turns to his fries. 

“This is fantastic,” he says.

Geralt’s eyebrows rise in amusement. “Glad you think so.” He bites into his burger, too. “But I think you were so hungry you’d have said that about anything.”

“Nuh-uh.” Jaskier shakes his head and sucks a bit of sauce off his thumb. “This place is seriously heavenly. You should’ve told me about this ages ago. It’s probably the best place in LA.”

“First of all, it’s nearly forty-five minutes from Shanon’s. I don’t even think it’s technically in LA.” Geralt sips his coke. “And second, I can’t tell everyone about it. Part of its charm is the fact it’s always half-full.”

“So I’m worth telling?”

A flush rises in Geralt’s cheeks and he turns down to his food. “You don’t get questions while we’re stopped.”

“Fine,” Jaskier rolls his eyes and sips his chocolate shake. Growing up, his mother always droned on about the benefits of healthy eating. They seldom had sweets and goodies, let alone trips to diners. But, after the day he’s had, Jaskier can feel his stress melting away, whether it’s healthy or not.

“I am surprised you didn’t ask about the monster,” Geralt says casually and louder than Jaskier assumed he’d be comfortable with. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Well, sure,” Jaskier says with a shrug. “But I had more pressing things to ask about.”

“It was a harpy.”   
“A  _ harpy?  _ Like, out of the myths?”

“The myths get it a little wrong, but essentially, yes.”

“Woah.” Jaskier flops back in the booth and runs his hand through his hair. “That’s… woah.”

Geralt lets out a throaty chuckle and finishes off the last of his burger. “That’s the only freebie you’re getting.”

“So what, if I want to ask you anything ever again I’ll have to sit with you in the car for an hour?”

“I guess so.” He shrugs lightly. “Within reasons, of course.”

“You drive a hard bargain, but I ‘spose it might not be the worst thing in the world, on one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“I still get to pick the music.”

* * *

When they get back to Shanon’s, it’s almost two in the morning. Jaskier flops into bed fully clothed, full, and with a head-spinning with adventure. Vaguely, he realizes he never got to ask his last half-question. 

His letter from Columbia sits on the kitchen table, unopened. 

* * *

Jaskier wakes with a start. A sharp pain bolts up his shin.

Next to him, Judy grins. 

With a groan, the world slowly comes back to him. He’s in  _ The History of Economics in Pre-War Europe _ , mostly slumped over in the small desk, his head full of fog. He shifts through a stretch and tries to refocus, but most of what the prof says sounds like a foreign language. His notes sit open and abandoned for the rest of the class.

“You owe me a drink and a paper edit,” Judy says as the class wraps up.

Jaskier shoves his notebook into his bag. “I guess I do,” he grumbles.

“The only paper left is the final one.”

“Bully for you.”

Judy laughs lightly. “You should know my writing is atrocious. The only thing I’ve ever failed is my fourth-grade spelling test.”

Jaskier sighs loudly.

Judy waves him off and swings her bag over her shoulder. “Oh, come one. It won’t be bad. And I think we should both be proud we made it to nearly the end of the semester before one of us fell asleep.”

“So close and yet so far.”

“Why are you so tired anyway? I thought you cut class after the midterm yesterday to nap.” 

Jaskier hesitates, unsure of how much to spill. He trusts Judy, he really does, but there’s a difference between a drunken tangle in the sheets and telling someone that his housemate hunts monsters in his spare time. 

“I didn’t get my nap,” he says in the end. 

“Oh? What kept you up?”

“I mean… you know. Homework and stuff.”

Judy’s eyes narrow and she locks on Jaskier’s face. After an appraising glare, she cracks into a grin. “Maybe it’s not so much a  _ what  _ as it is a  _ who _ ?”

Jaskier feels a warmth flood up his chest and run under his cheeks. “It’s not like that,” he insists. “My roommate had a work problem and I helped him out.”

“Oh really?” Judy taps his arm lightly. “That’s all it was?”

“Yes. Really.”

She shrugs and the smile slides from her face. “I just wanted a little drama, I guess. That roommate of yours just seems like such a mystery. Don’t you think?”

Jaskier scrunches his nose. “Nah, not really.”


	7. The Circle Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is delayed! I had another WIP that I was so close to finishing so I just pushed to the end on this one. I know that this chapter is short, but the summer/winter breaks are more of interludes to the longer 'semester' chapters.   
> (Also, I'm not sure if anyone has picked up on it, but 'Stella' is supposed to be the Countess de Stael :D )
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kind comments!! I love them! And they push my to get my butt in gear and write fast. 
> 
> Title is a song by Joni Mitchell.

**Winter Break**

**1966-1967**

When Jaskier steps into the arrival hall, he’s greeted by a flurry of warmth.

“Jaskier!” Stella wraps her arms around him and pulls him close. “God, I’ve missed you.”

He drops his suitcase to his side and runs his hands up her back. “I’ve missed you too,” he says. She rests her head in the crook of his neck and he runs a hand over her sprayed-stiff blonde hair. He  _ has  _ missed her--he’s not lying. It was just that over the last few weeks, his mind had been on other things instead. Some of his problems were school-related (because, honestly, he’s a bit surprised he managed to turn every paper and project in on time and study for his exams) but most of his distractions were entirely non-academic and had grey hair. 

_ Fuck _ . Jaskier pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath. No matter what he’s thinking, Geralt’s back in Los Angeles at the moment. And there’s no point dwelling on him. 

In the back of the yellow cab, Stella winds her fingers around his. “Jaskier?” Her lips turn down in concern. In her dark wool coat and red scarf, she looks like a dream. 

Jaskier squeezes her hand. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Just tired.”

Stella leans in and rests her head on his shoulder. 

The cab crawls along through the New York traffic. In the haze of dusk, the twinkle of the hazy lights gleam. Jaskier runs a finger through the condensation on the window. He finds himself searching the shadows for the things he once thought were impossible. They’re there, he knows, he just needs to learn how to look deeper. 

* * *

He goes back to the public library his first day back. His parents are still asleep when he slips out of the apartment and the sun isn’t fully up yet--long shadows of buildings thatch the streets. 

When he finally has the old manuscript in front of him again, it feels like coming home. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it until now. It’s stupid, he thinks, to be this attached to an old book. But as he flips through the brittle pages with care, he can’t help but feel as if it’s hooked his gut in some way. There’s a pull in his core that tells him to looks closer--to figure out what it all means. 

He pulls out his notebook and starts translating again. It’s slow going. But, for the first time, it just  _ clicks  _ in a way that it never had before. He doesn’t look at each separate word, he sees them as phrases and lines and finds the rhythm and meter of the verse. 

After an hour, he has a line:

_ Toss a coin to your Witcher / oh, Valley of Plenty _

Jaskier splits into a grin and nods. He pumps his fist at his side. He should be embarrassed over the fact he’s acting like a kid who got a pony for Christmas over a damn old book, but he can’t bring himself to care. The only other person in the room is an old woman with gray hair in a stiff but neat braid, anyway. She catches his eye and smiles, slightly. 

Jaskier smiles back. For a split second, he locks eyes with her, and the dark blue slips to purple. But as soon as he catches it, she dips her chin, and Jaskier sees only blue again. 

He leans back and sighs. If Shanon were here, she’d scold him and make him take a break. Which he probably needs. Or more like definitely needs. But how can he rest when he knows what’s waiting for him out there?

* * *

On Christmas Eve, he takes Stella skating. Or, more accurately, Stella takes him skating. She twists and spins and glides with ease. The pick on the toes of her blades carves swirls in the ice. Jaskier laces his skates slowly, all too aware of how coltish he is. 

“Come on,” Stella says and drags him on the ice.

He leans forward and uses her hand to steady himself. “You know, maybe I should wait at the bench. I’m not built for ice.”

She laughs. “Don’t be silly. Everyone can skate.” She nods her chin at the group of kids, no older than eight, playing next to them. 

“It’s not like walking,” Jaskier argues, “this is unnatural.” 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” She rolls her eyes. In her dark lashes, snowflakes catch. 

“I’m not being dramatic,” Jaskier insists. “I just belong on the coast, that’s all.” 

“Do you?” Her voice sounds smaller than it had before.

“I think it’s my destiny,” he says with a shrug.

Stella eases her hands away from his and glides backwards, still facing him but moving without hesitation.

Jaskier moves his foot to catch up. Before he can get in a full glide, his knee turns out and his belly hits the ice. He slides forward, laughing. 

“Come on, beach boy,” she teases, “you’ve got a lot to learn.”

* * *

That night, after they’ve both changed into clothes that aren’t dampened by the snow, they go to a cafe not far from Jaskier’s place. He’s been here before, but now, for the first time, he realizes how much he dislikes it. The atmosphere is too stiff--the menu is only fancy coffees from Europe and liqueurs. There’s not milkshakes or greasy burgers. Even the drip coffee is too nice (and too damn expensive) and doesn’t taste burnt while being cold at the same time. 

Stella reaches across the table and strokes his hand. “Jaskier?”

“Yeah?”

She sets down the mug of her fancy espresso and bites her lip. “Did you really mean what you said? That your destiny is on the coast?”

Jaskier frowns. “I mean, I don’t know. Some days I’d say yes and others I’d say no. I can never make up my mind, really.” His head aches. “Why?”

“It’s just…” she looks up at him from under her eyelashes and  _ god _ Jaskier remembers he could write song after song about her. “I thought you were going to apply to a transfer to Columbia?”

“I did,” Jaskier reassures her. “I did.”

“Have you heard back? The deadline must be coming up soon.”

“Not yet,” Jaskier lies. Back home in Los Angeles, that letter sits on his desk, unopened. “I’ll call you as soon as I know.” 

He pounds back the rest of his coffee. It does nothing to stop the way his stomach tightens and his tongue dries. There’s got to be something wrong with him, he thinks. God help him before he slips off the deep end. 


	8. Hey Jude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments!! They keep me motivated!
> 
> As always, I do my own proofreading so let me know if there are mistakes :)
> 
> Oh, and the chapter title is a song by The Beatles. In case you've been living under a rock for sixty years.

**Year 2, Semester 2**

**1967**

When Jaskier finally gets to his place in L.A., it’s late. Way too late for class at nine tomorrow morning. His plane got delayed in New York on account of a nasty blizzard that buried half the east coast and his layover in Huston stretched to nearly seven hours because of the chain of delays. He rubs at his eyes and drops his suitcase on the floor. It’s tempting to flop into bed and let sleep claim him, but his clothes smell strongly of sweat and dry air, so he strikes that for now. He’ll shower in the morning, but he at least needs to change. 

Slowly, he tugs off his clothes and lets them drop on the floor. He’ll get them in the morning. Or the next day. Either way, he can’t think about it right now. 

As he pulls a clean white t-shirt free from the top drawer, Jaskier sees  _ it  _ sitting on his desk. The white envelope nearly glows in the faint light filtering in through his blinds. 

Jaskier sighs and picks up the envelope. He runs a finger over the seal, half-tempted and half-terrified to rip it open.  _ Columbia. _ Could he really go there next year? Could he leave the coast? Sure, it wasn’t what he imagined it would be—far from it—but there are certain...things here that do have appeal. 

But he can’t deal with it tonight. His head bounds. Jaskier tosses the letter back onto a pile of old paper. Acceptance or rejection, he can’t deal with this right now. It’s too much. 

When he crawls into bed, he lets the warmth of the blankets and softness of the pillow sweep him away. 

He wakes in a comfortable mess and tangle of blankets. His hair feels matted to his head; his eyes full of sleep. 

The clocks on his nightstand shows it’s a quarter to eleven. 

Jaskier blinks. He missed his class. He didn’t just sorta miss it—it’s been over for a full forty-five minutes. 

Jaskier pulls his blanket up higher and rolls over. No point stressing over it now. Besides, its just syllabus day anyway. And (ugh) the course is with Dr. Anderson again. How much could he have missed?

* * *

He  _ does _ manage to rouse himself and shower before his next class. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t be proud of making it to a class that starts at one in the afternoon, but he hadn’t thought he’d really make it. 

Jaskier slips into a desk at the back of the room and glances around. He doesn’t recognize anyone. Not that he had expected too (it’s a big campus, after all), but a familiar face would be welcome. While he waits he drums a tune with his pencil on his notebook. There’s an earworm that’s been in his head for days now, but he can’t get it out—can’t get it right. No matter which way he tries, there's something he’s missing. 

Finally, the professor enters. (At least Jaskier assumes she’s the prof—her brown hair is streaked with grey and she’s holding a stack of books in her arms.)

“Welcome,” she says, “to English 225. Medieval Literature. I’m Dr. Reed, but you can call me Jane.” She lets the books in arms drop to the front table. A thud rings through the small room. Here, in the humanities building, everything always seems too cramped; the only nice classrooms are the larger lecture halls. Everywhere else seems like it was scrapped together on a thin budget. Which, Jaskier thinks, it probably was. The table at the front has a folded piece of paper jammed under one leg to stop it from wobbling. 

He bits his lip and spins his pencil in his fingers. It might be a long semester. 

“So,” Dr. Reed—Jane—says. “Why’d you register for this class?” She looks at the class from under her wire-framed glasses. 

Predictably, no one answers. There are only twenty-some students in the room and (from what Jaskier sees out of the corner of his eye) everyone is suddenly interested in their shoes. 

“I love Beowulf,” one guy says. His face is round and childlike, but from his tone alone Jaskier thinks the guy is a prick. “It’s just the pinnacle of culture. I think it’s a real shame it’s not more widely read. Most people are ignorant of the  _ real _ classics. Only read pulp novels and romances.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes. 

“I see,” says Jane. Her thin lips stay in a line. “Anyone else care to share?”

Again, the class stays silent. So silent it’s painful and awkward and Jaskier swears he hears the clock ticking, but it’s clear Jane isn’t going to move on without an answer. 

“I joined because I needed a historic English credit,” Jaskier quips. “And it was this course or Shakespeare at eight in the morning.”

A few chuckles pepper the room and Jaskier offers Jane a warm grin. God help him—he can’t mess up this class before it even starts. 

But Jane cracks a smile. “An honest answer, finally.” She scans the room with her eyes. “And how many of you are in the same boat? You’re only here because it’s a requirement?”

One by one, his classmates raise their hand halfway. Some flash sheepish grins as they do. Only a few students—including the Beowulf guy—don’t raise their hands, and Jaskier suspects some of them are liars. 

Jane only nods. “Trust me, I’m not offended. I’ve been teaching this course for nearly eight years now. I  _ know  _ most of you are here because it’s mandatory.

“Some of you, however, may already have an interest in medieval literature. Like Beowulf—“ she grabs the chalk from the desk and writes the title across the blackboard in her chicken scratch— “and probably King Arthur.” She adds his name below. 

“What do the rest of you know about medieval literature?” She turns to the class again, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses. 

“There’s knights? Right?” one guy says. 

Jane nods and adds ‘knights’ to the list. 

“And princesses and romance,” says the girl next to Jaskier. 

“Lots of royalty and court drama in general!” another student adds. 

Quickly, the class forgets all decorum and tosses out ideas freely. 

“Tournaments! Jousting!”

“And the knights slay dragons.”

“There’s magic, sometimes.”

“Everyone in the royal court is having affairs.”

Jane smiles broadly. “Good, good good.” She claps her hands together. “Anything else?”

Jaskier swallows the slight lump in his throat. “There’s monsters, a lot of them.”

Jane nods and writes ‘monsters’ across the board. “Can’t have our heroes without a little conflict.” Finally, she sets down the chalk and turns to the class. 

“All the topics you listed  _ are  _ large parts of medieval literature. Of course there are famous stories of the knights of the round table, and Beowulf, and endless other heroes.

“But what we failed to list is the endless volumes about ordinary people. For every myth and legend we have, we also have texts written about the daily lives of people in the medieval world. We have their riddles and songs, their ballads and plays.”

Her eyes sweep over the classroom again. “I think the reason students generally don’t consider medieval literature as a legitimate option is because people think it's inherently unrelatable. I mean, how are we—as modern, imperfect people— supposed to understand these characters when they seem so perfect? How do we bridge the distance in time?”

Jaskier nods his head along to Jane’s speech. Her words have an almost melodic quality; he could listen to her speak all day, even if she was only reading his shopping list. 

“My goal in this course is that you’ll each walk away at the end of the semester with a better understanding of not only medieval literature, but medieval people. They weren’t all squares. They were funny and raunchy and imperfect, but they had ideals and values at the same time.

“The lives of those in the past aren’t that different from ours, when you look closer.”

Jaskier drums the eraser of his pencil against the wooden top of his desk. Jane seems nice, he thinks. She seems like she actually cares about the material she teaches (which is more than he could say for a lot of profs). Still. He’s not sure he buys the whole ‘medieval people are just like us’ thing. After all, what could he have in common with someone who lived a thousand years ago? Jaskier will stick with his running water and vinyls, thanks. 

* * *

When he gets home, he opens the door to find Geralt lounging on the couch, feet on the coffee table, and a book in his hand. 

“Hi,” Jaskier says lamely. 

Geralt grins. “Welcome back to sunny Los Angeles,” he deadpans.

“They should hire you for their next tourism campaign. Really, I couldn’t imagine a warmer welcome to the city.” Jaskier flops down in the white armchair on the other side of the coffee table. “You’re lucky Shanon’s not here, by the way. She might skin you alive for putting your feet on her one-of-a-kind coffee table.”

“I took off my shoes.” He flips a page in the book and doesn’t look up. 

Jaskier sinks into the chair and lets a comfortable moment pass. “So, how was your break?”

Geralt raises an eyebrow and finally glances upward. “That’s a question.”

Jaskier rolls his eyes. “It’s hardly a real question. I mean, am I never supposed to ask you anything again? Not even for the time?”

Geralt lets out a throaty chuckle. “I’m fucking with you. It was fine.”

“Oh.” Jaskier stares at his dark eyes. When he looks long enough, the glow starts to leak through the glamour. “Well. That’s good. I guess. Did you see any family?”

Geralt’s face falls. “I stayed here.”

“I was just curious. I didn’t mean to press-”

“Then don’t.”

Geralt slams his book on the coffee table and stalks off upstairs to his room. 

Jaskier stares at the slight indent in the couch cushions. He hadn’t meant anything by his question. Really. Why had it set Geralt off like that? In his mental list of questions for the next time they drove (assuming there was one), Jaskier did have one about Geralt’s family. Were they like him too? For now, he strikes it. Clearly they’re not there yet. 

And family can be complicated. Jaskier knows that too well. 

* * *

That night, Jaskier stays up and tries to write. The song in his head stays stuck there, half-formed and pulling at his thoughts. He’s so close, he thinks. But he’s not there yet. 

After a few hours of scribbling down garbage lyrics, he gives up and strums  _ Hey Jude  _ on his guitar instead. At least he knows the words for that one. 

* * *

On Wednesday, Jaskier has the same classes as he does on Monday. In the afternoon he’ll go back to Medieval Lit (which he’s weirdly looking forward too) but for now, he’s dragging himself across campus to History 204 with Dr. Anderson. 

If only there was another prof teaching the class. 

It's the history of Ancient, for god’s sake. It  _ should _ be interesting. But Jaskier knows that Anderson will find a way to make it dry as all hell. 

_ It’s not fair _ , he thinks. Letting boring people teach interesting things should be banned. He also supposes that things are only interesting once someone with enough passion digs into something ‘boring’. It takes a certain fire to care. 

Jaskier sighs and pulls his jacket closed as he walks up to the lecture hall. It’s actually cool and cloudy this morning—if only that had stayed in New York. He’d take some sun and heat, thank you. That’s part of why he came here, after all. 

He sucks it up, though. He’s seen stranger things around here than a few stray clouds. Besides, it will pass. Probably by the time he’s out of this lecture the sun will peek out and he’ll have to sling his jacket over his shoulder if he doesn’t want to swelter. 

In the liberal arts building, there’s always a persistent draft when it’s cool out. (And, when it’s hot, it’s always a few degrees too warm.) Jaskier opts to keep his jacket on and seeks out a space in the room for History 204. The class is much smaller than his intro-level course, but there’s still a good fifty people. The size makes it easier to slip into the middle of the room. 

He wishes Judy was here—she’d have the notes from Monday. But Jaskier knows he’s got to stop relying on her so much, anyway. Academically and emotionally. She’s really the only one he’s met at school, which is kinda sad when he thinks about it. (He tries not to think about it.)

He scratches  _ History 204  _ onto the top of his new black notebook. In the margin of the page, he sketches a sword. He hasn’t done this in years and his lines are god awful, but there’s something almost therapeutic in carving little lines into the page. He lets his mind drift and—

“Morning, class,” says a much too familiar voice. 

Jaskier sits up straight as a rail. Sometimes he wonders if he angered some god or brought a curse upon himself as a kid. His luck is too rotten for it to be a coincidence. He could’ve had any prof or TA. There are dozens of them. 

But no. 

It’s Geralt. 

He stands at the front of the room in slacks and button-down (though it looks a hair more casual than his stiff get up from last year, Jaskier notes). When he crosses his arms over his chest, his muscles pull at the white seems. 

Jaskier feels a warmth rise to his cheeks and casts down his head. With his pencil, he scratches an angry squiggle over the little sword he’d drawn.  _ Focus _ . He’s here to learn. 

“As I said on Monday,” Geralt says, “we’re going to start with the  _ Aeneid, _ so I suggest picking up your copy from the bookstore soon as we’ll discuss act I next week.”

Jaskier bites his lip. How did he end up here? Maybe there were still other history courses he could switch into before the deadline. 

But he doesn’t have much time to think. After blowing through some brief logistics, Geralt starts into the lecture. 

It’s oddly soothing, Jaskier thinks, to listen to him speak on and on about the founding of Rome. About halfway through the class, he realizes he hasn’t written anything down. If it were any other class, he’d be jotting things down in a hurry to catch up. 

But other classes aren’t taught by his roommate.

Jaskier sticks his pencil behind his ear and leans back in his desk. He’s content to just listen for today. 

Geralt catches his eye not long after that. It lingers for a moment before he keeps scanning the room. 

After the lecture, Jaskier waits outside the door for him. 

Geralt doesn’t start when he leaves the hall, but he does pinch his nose, so Jaskier calls it a win. “What do you want, Jaskier.” 

“I didn’t take this course on purpose or anything, you know. It’s not like I’m stalking you. Well, I don’t even know if I  _ could _ stalk you because I already know where you live and all that.”

“Jaskier.”

Jaskier rubs the back of his neck. “Look, I know you’ve got to do your job. I don’t want to make this…” he searches for the word, but it doesn’t come. Harder? Weird? Awkward? None of them feel right.  _ I don’t want to ruin whatever we’re doing by pushing too hard.  _ Geralt had made his feelings about personal questions overwhelmingly clear. “I thought it was Dr. Anderson teaching this course,” he settles on. 

“He was supposed to, but he’s on a medical leave. Should be back by midterms but I’m taking over for now.” Geralt adjusts the strap of his bag with his hand. “You’d know that if you were here on Monday.”

“Oh come on, you know I didn’t get back until three in the morning! And that’s three California time! My brain was still in New York which meant it was even later—“ his words die in his throat as he sees Geralt eyebrow rise. His eyes sparkle. “Oh. Oh oh oh. Don’t give me that whole ‘strict professor’ thing. You think it’s funny.”

“You’re an adult, Jaskier. You  _ pay _ for this course. If you don’t want to come, that’s on you.” He walks down the hall and veers to the left—where the offices are, if Jaskier remembers. 

Jaskier watches him walk away and groans. Great. Just great. As if he needed things to be more complicated. 

* * *

Jaskier would like to say the semester took off in a blaze of glory. He’d like to say he slayed monsters on Monday, aced his paper on Wednesday, and then played a concert on the weekend. 

But he does none of those things. 

The tidal wave of work hits him harder than he expected. Within a few weeks, he’s drowning in papers again. He hardly has time to listen to music, let alone write or play his own. 

He still jots the few lines that come to him down in his notebook, but they stay in those pages. 

One day, at a Shanon-free breakfast, Jaskier stirs the sugar into his coffee and looks pointedly at Geralt. “Soooo,” he says. 

“Hmm.” Geralt flips over a bag of the newspaper. 

“Any leads? Anything new to track down?”

Geralt drops the paper and sighs. “No. Not yet.”

“So do you stay here to kill the one monster a year that pops up?”

Geralt grits his teeth. “I do more than that.” He stops for a moment and some of his indignation melts away. “But it has been abnormally quiet this past month, I’ll admit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Geralt sighs. “And I’ll tell you when we need to go.”

Jaskier smiles to himself and chugs down his overly sweet coffee. Finally, something to look forward to. 

* * *

In English, they read the  _ Canterbury Tales. _

“I’m sure you’ve heard of them before,” Dr. Reed—Jane—says to the class. “The stories represent the tales of different members of a pilgrimage gathered in a pub. All walks of medieval life make their way into the text.

“But the most famous is arguably  _ The Knight's Tale.  _ It’s your standard tale—chivalry and knights and princesses and jousts.”

Jane gives the class a knowing grin. “But it’s not my favourite. Personally, I think the most interesting tale is  _ The Miller’s Tale. _ It’s everything the knight’s tale isn’t. Instead of hearing about glory and destiny, we get the raunchy story of a carpenter’s adulterous wife, a scene where they  _ literally  _ kiss ass, fart jokes, and overall slapstick humour.” 

Jaskier smiles to himself. This sounds like his kind of story. Beside him, the guy who ranted about  _ Beowulf  _ bristles. Jaskier’s grin widens. 

“While the highly idealized tales of the Middle Ages are important to understanding the ideals of the time, we also need to understand how the average person lived and what was the reality of their daily lives. If a thousand years from now they used Western movies and comic books to characterize our times, it wouldn’t be accurate either.” 

Jaskier never thought about it that way. Sure, he’s seen a few good John Wayne movies, but he can’t imagine if everyone in the future thought that was all that was happening right now. As a kid, he had a good few years where he imagined having a horse and a sheriff’s badge. But now? He hasn’t thought about it in years and years. Even if someone offered him a life like that, he wouldn’t take it. 

With a cool jolt, Jaskier realizes there’s not many things he’d trade his current life for. 

* * *

Stella calls later that week. 

“Anything from Columbia?” she asks, her voice muffled by the static of the country between them. 

“Not yet.” 

“Hopefully soon. I think registration closes at the end of March.”

“Well, it’s still February,” Jaskier says. He stares at the unopened envelope on his desk. “There’s still time.”

“Well, let me know when you hear,” she says. “Either way.”

Jaskier feels a hard lump press in his throat. He should just open the letter. If he’s rejected, then he wouldn’t have to make any choice. But if he’s accepted… It’s stupid, he thinks. The letter is  _ there _ . Not looking at it doesn’t change anything. Even if he’s accepted, he can still choose to stay. 

It shouldn’t change anything. But somehow it feels dangerous to open it. Once he does, there’s no going back—in his core, he knows if he’s accepted he’ll go. He’ll say yes and have a safe life with Stella on the East Coast like his parents wanted for him in the first place. He’ll wear wool coats and dressy slacks. Maybe he’ll take up drinking scotch or whiskey or something else appropriately stuffy. 

“Of course I’ll let you know,” Jaskier promises. “You’ll be the first person I tell, either way.”

* * *

Even by late February, Dr. Anderson still hasn’t come back from leave. For three hours a week, Jaskier listens to Geralt’s lectures. 

(Once, he tried to convince Geralt to just let him skip and tell him the material later in the day. Geralt refused.) 

Even though Geralt’s talks are surprisingly interesting, Jaskier still finds himself losing focus from time to time. Like now, when Geralt’s just handing back their papers from last week on Roman architecture. His gaze drifts out the windows of the lecture hall and settles on the tops of the palm trees out in the quad. 

“Julian?” 

Jaskier snaps up.  _ That ass.  _ It wasn’t the first time he called his name, but Jaskier wasn’t exactly expecting anything but his nickname. 

Geralt stands at the front of the room holding a stack of papers. “Come get your paper,” he says. A faint grin dances across his face. 

Jaskier stomps down the stairs and takes his paper. 

A ‘B’ is written across the front in red ink. Jaskier frowns—he spent hours on this. It’s ‘B+’ worthy, at least. Other profs would probably even give this an ‘A-’. 

Still, he flips through the pages, reading Geralt’s marginalia. Curled red question marks dot the lines. A few grammatical mistakes are circled. 

At the end is a note, scrawled in the bottom corner.  _ Got a lead. Be ready to go tonight. _

Jaskier crunches the paper between his fingers. Finally. Finally, things are happening again. 

* * *

Geralt gets home around sundown. Jaskier goes to the road to meet him. 

“You ready?” Geralt doesn’t get out of the car. 

Jaskier nods. 

“Get in.”

And, like that, they’re off again. 

Jaskier cranks the radio and rolls down the window and lets the air sweep back his hair. 

* * *

“So,” Jaskier says as they’re sitting in traffic, waiting to get outside the city limits. “What’s the mission?”

“It’s not a mission,” Geralt says. “It’s a manticore. I’m going to kill it.”

“Alright.” Jaskier can’t remember when in his life his reaction to ‘I’m going to kill a manticore’ became ‘alright’. At any rate, he likes it better this way. 

* * *

When they reach hour two, Jaskier realizes he’s forgotten his list of questions he wanted to ask. The paper sits on his nightstand, back in Shanon’s place. He had some damn good ones on there too. 

“Why do you do this?” he settles on.

Geralt, hands on the wheel, shrugs his shoulders. “I used to do it for coin.”

_ Coin, _ Jaskier thinks,  _ what does he think he is? Some kind of gangster?  _ “Not anymore?”

“That’s another question.” 

Jaskier leans on his hand and watches the ocean fly past as they cruise down the highway. Overhead, birds arc across the half-moon. 

* * *

“Why do you do this  _ now _ ?” he asks when they hit hour three—which they only do thanks to the horrendous traffic they hit in LA.

Geralt takes a breath. “Someone has to.”

* * *

They cross the city limits a short while later. Jaskier expects Geralt to veer off downtown—to park near some shady alley like where he first fought that monster in LA.

But he doesn’t. 

He takes an early exit ramp and pulls into a quiet suburb far from the centre of the city. In the distance, Jaskier sees the lights glow before they cleave to the darkness of the ocean. 

“Stay in the car,” Geralt orders. “And I mean it this time.”

Jaskier raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. I’ll stay.” 

He watches Geralt walk off into a dark park, his sword in hand. 

Jaskier prays that no one calls the cops. He might be good at talking, but he doubts he’ll ever be able to explain away why Geralt’s running through parks at night with a sword in his hand and a wild sort of look in his eyes. He  _ especially _ won’t be able to explain anything if Geralt comes back soaked in blood. 

_ No, no, officer. He’s just killing monsters, I swear. _ Jaskier bites his lip; he'd rather not be sent to jail or be declared mentally unfit. 

But he can’t help but worry about Geralt. They’re friends, after all. Even if Geralt wouldn’t say that out loud. 

When Jaskier thinks about it, he’s not sure if Geralt has any friends. He’s never seen him around campus with anyone else. He’s never brought anyone back to the house. Hell, Jaskier doesn’t even think he’s ever answered a phone call where someone asked for Geralt. He always gave off the ‘mysterious loner’ impression, but to have no one?

He needs someone to look out for him. Even if Jaskier only watches his back. Makes sure he’s eating and sleeping and all that. 

* * *

When Geralt returns half an hour later, Jaskier can’t help but breathe a little easier. Even if Geralt’s left side is splattered in blood, his right forearm arm has a sizable gash, and he’s holding some sore of fang in his hand. 

Geralt gets back in the car and drives without a word. 

After a few moments of silence, Geralt turns to Jaskier. “You can ask another question now.”

Jaskier sweeps over Geralt with his eyes. “Are you alright.”

Geralt’s Adam’s apple bobs. “I’m fine,” he says.

“You said you’d answer honestly.”

“Hmm.” His knuckles go white against the wheel. “I’m tired. My arm hurts. I think my head is going to split in two.”

“Oh.” Jaskier sinks back. “I could drive, if you want.”

Geralt shakes his head curtly. “No way you’re driving Roach.”

Jaskier pauses for a beat. “Did you name your car  _ Roach? _ ”

“It’s a good name,” Geralt says through gritted teeth.

“Roach.”

“ _ Jaskier. _ ”

Jaskier shakes his head and flops back. “Honestly…”

* * *

When they hit hour two on the way back, Jaskier eyes Geralt. “What happens if you don’t do what you do?”

Geralt’s upper lip twitches. “I don’t know. I’ve always done it. I guess a lot of people would get hurt.”

* * *

Hour three.

“Can we stop for milkshakes and burgers again?”

“You’re seriously using your last question for that.”

“Yes…?”

“Fine.”

* * *

They sit in the dinner, weary and looking worse for wear. At least Geralt threw a sweater on over his bloody shirt. He takes a bite of his burger and a drop of ketchup falls onto his plate.

Jaskier sips his milkshake. “Do you have a quarter?”

“Do I—” he shakes his head— “why do you need a quarter?”

“For the jukebox,” Jaskier explains. “So I can put on some good music.”

Geralt doesn’t reply. He takes another bite of his burger. A spec of ketchup lands on his cheek. 

* * *

In class next Monday, it’s very difficult to focus on Geralt’s lecture about Nero. He looks every bit the prim and proper teacher all dressed in his slacks and button-down. 

Jaskier can’t help but wonder what he uses to get the blood stains out. 

* * *

By the next week, Jaskier is saved from the distraction that is Geralt when Dr. Anderson returns. He’s even more grumpy and miserable than usual and his foot is still wrapped in a cast. He mumbles something about ‘uneven sidewalks’ on campus before launching into a lecture on the fall of Rome. 

After class, Jaskier finds Geralt. 

“What really happened to him?”

Geralt frowns. “He got in the way of a ghoul.”

“And he doesn’t remember?”

“I—I helped him remember it differently.”

“You  _ what _ .” Jaskier stops and stares at Geralt. “I think you need to explain that.”

Geralt smirks. 

It’s truly unfair, Jaskier thinks, for his mouth to look that way. And his jawline. And his eyes. 

“You’ll have to add it to the list of questions,” he says. 

Jaskier could scream. 

* * *

Jaskier stares at the letter. That stupid letter. He tucks it into his pocket that night before he catches a bus down to the sea. 

It’s peaceful to walk along the water here in a way it never is in New York. The rivers there are industrial and practical. The ocean is chaotic but somehow Jaskier finds comfort in the disorder. Not everything needs a purpose. Sometimes he can just watch the waves crash against the sand and not worry about what the ships are bringing in. 

He kicks off his shoes and holds them in his hands. Underfoot, the sand is cool and damp and his footprints are only one set of many. He wishes he had a cigarette to stave off the light coolness of the night. 

After walking as far from the road as he can, he sits in the sand. He knows it’ll cling to his jeans. He doesn’t care. When he looks at the sky, most of the stars are lost to a layer of smog. Only a thin moon peeks out from underneath. 

Jaskier crumples the unopened letter into a ball. 

He hucks it into the place where the waves break. 

He doesn’t know what it said. He never will. 

And, somehow, he doesn’t care. 

None of this—nothing in LA—is how he thought it would be. But he’s finding his place, however slow it might be. 

* * *

He calls Stella the next day and tells her he didn’t get into Columbia. 

“Oh,” she says. Jaskier can imagine her mouth turning down, her face deflating. “Well that’s okay. We can still figure something out.”

“Can we?” Jaskier asks. He’s not trying to be facetious—he truly doesn’t know. 

“I don’t know.” Stella sounds small. 

* * *

As the term boils to an end (and, honestly, this one’s gone by faster than any other) Jaskier snags two tickets to a concert downtown. It’s a local band that Jaskier’s only vaguely heard of, but it’s at The Troubadour. Where any musician worth listening to has played. 

“Come on, Judy,” he begs, “you have to come!”

She rolls her eyes. “I have a final the next morning at eight. Honestly, any other night I’d go, but I’m not failing Econ for a band I’ve never even heard of.”

“ _ Please _ . I don’t want to go alone.”

“Jaskier. I can’t. Besides, I’m sure there’s someone else who’d go with you.”

* * *

“Come on, Geralt. Don’t make me go alone.”

Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. “I told you before, I don’t like music.”

“I think we both know that’s a lie. Everyone likes music, even if you haven’t found your genre yet.”

“I don’t.”

“Come on,” Jaskier says again. He holds up the two tickets. “It’s at the Troubadour.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I can’t waste these tickets. I’ll buy you as many drinks as you want?” 

Geralt pauses and glares. “Throw in food and I guess you have a deal.”

* * *

At the Troubadour, the music shakes Jaskier’s soul. He twists with the music. His head dances with the buzz of alcohol. Around him, everyone moves with the beat. 

It’s an enchanting fever dream. Jaskier lets himself get swept up. 

He knows that he’s sweating. He doesn’t care. 

Behind him, Geralt stands still with a beer in hand. He’s practically the only one who’s not at least bobbing his head. 

“Come on!” Jaskier shouts above the music. “Have some fun!”

Geralt takes a swig and raises his eyebrow at Jaskier. “Who says I’m not?”

* * *

After the concert, they move into the cool night breeze. It takes the heat off Jaskier’s skin and leaves him feeling like he stepped into another dimension. His ears still ring and his heart still hammers. 

“We'll never get a cab here,” he says. 

Geralt nods in agreement—the whole crowd has flooded out and are trying to hail taxis. 

“Come on, let's go up the street a bit,” Jaskier suggests. He lived in New York for eighteen years. He knows all the tips and tricks to catch a cab. 

As they part from the crowd and cut through an alley, Jaskier takes in the warm glow of the city. It’s so alive. Impossibly so. In New York, everyone always seemed hidden even when they were standing in front of him.

But here? Here it’s so warm and the din of the street lights washes over him and Geralt seems to radiate his own light and he’s here and he’s real and Jaskier can reach out and touch him.

“Jas,” Geralt says softly. “We shouldn’t…”

Jaskier tangles his fingers between Geralt’s. Geralt is real. In all the chaos of the last months—years—it almost surprises him. Half of him still believes he dreamt Geralt up—looking at him always feels like he’s trying to remember a dream. “Why,” he whispers.

Geralt swallows. He’s staring at Jaskier, his eyes steeled. He only shakes his head in reply to Jaskier’s question. 

They’re still about a foot apart but Jaskier can feel Geralt’s warmth crashing like waves. Even in the heart of the city, with the background hum of cars and people and music, Jaskier hears the thump of his heart. If he listens closely enough, he imagines he can hear Geralt’s too. 

“There’s people around,” Geralt whispers.

“No one can see us,” Jaskier says. They can’t, he knows. They’re tucked away in the shadows of an alley. “No one is looking for us anyway.”

“Jas,” Geralt says. He reaches out and runs his hand against Jaskier’s cheek. His graze settles at Jaskier’s chin and tilts it upward. 

“How long have you wanted this?” Since the moment he saw Geralt, Jaskier hasn’t been able to pull his gaze away from him. He’s beautiful and mysterious and strange and everything Jaskier could never imagine would want him. 

“Longer than you know,” Geralt says. His voice is lower than normal. Husky. 

He starts to say something else, but Jaskier doesn’t let him finish. 

He pushes himself to his tiptoes and reaches for Geralt and finds the scruff of his shirt. He bundles it in his hand and pulls them together. 

Jaskier’s drowning and floating and tumbling in the waves all at once. Geralt’s lips are soft and warm, but he moves with hunger. Jaskier returns it back. 

A gentle nip sends him rolling. 

If he’s lost at sea, he doesn’t want to be found. He lets himself drift away in the moment. 

He lets himself be lost with Geralt. 


End file.
